MAJDAL SHAMS — Sitting on a street-level porch facing Majdal Shams’ bustling main drag, Qasem Sabbagh offered his visitors Turkish coffee and then reflected on the change in the psychic landscape for the Druze on the Golan Heights.

For decades, the Golan’s Druze had maintained loyalty to Syria and resisted integration into Israel, which captured the strategic plateau in 1967 and effectively annexed it in 1981. But over the last two years, a fundamental transformation had taken place for the 29,000 residents of Majdal Shams and three neighboring Druze towns, Mas’ada, Ein Qiniyye, and Buq’ata, driven by a pair of traumatic events with distinct geopolitical roots but a common tragic result for the community.

The first was the rocket attack by Iran’s proxy terror group, Hezbollah – a close ally of former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad — on a local soccer field in July 2024 that killed 12 Druze children, followed by the July 2025 massacre of over 2,000 Druze in Sweida, Syria, by forces loyal to Syria’s current president, Ahmed al-Sharaa.

“When we were growing up, we were taught to speak of ourselves as Syrians,” said Sabbagh, 50, whose work involves protecting flocks of birds near local wind turbines. “There has been a big change in Druze society.”

The two tragedies caused a “very profound shift for Druze in the Golan,” said Lorena Kizel Khateeb, 29, the Druze CEO of Together Vouch for Each Other (in Hebrew, B’Yachad Arevim Zeh L’Zeh), who succeeded Yosef Haddad in the position.

One outgrowth of that shift has been a dramatic spike in citizenship applications by Golan Druze since 2025, after decades in which the vast majority of Druze opted instead for permanent residency, which provides full health care, education, and legal status.

Israel’s capture of the plateau had sundered families in two, with close relatives separated by a hostile border and a UN-patrolled buffer zone.

Those who wound up on the Israeli side stayed loyal to Syria, partly out of fears that switching allegiances would trigger retaliation against their families across the border. But they also tried to maintain close ties with Syria out of the expectation that the Golan would eventually return to Syria.

Despite Israel and Syria remaining in a state of belligerence, Druze students continued to attend university in Damascus until the outbreak of the Syrian civil war in 2011. Marriages were arranged across the border, with Druze women from the Israeli Golan relocating to villages in Syria.

The Golan Heights’ famed apples and other agricultural products also made the journey, crossing the border under special arrangements to be sold in Syrian markets.

Those family and community ties persist, but in contrast to past years, Druze on both sides of the border no longer envision reunification as a return to Syrian rule, casting a wary eye on Shaara’s Islamist government and increasingly viewing Israel as the community’s protector.

Israel has offered full citizenship to its Druze residents since 1981. Until recently, the vast majority rejected it, opting for permanent residency,

In 2025, Druze applications for citizenship spiked dramatically and according to data from earlier this year, four in 10 Golan Druze are now naturalized citizens

And while most Druze still carry hope of reunification with families on the other side of the border and UN-patrolled buffer zone, they no longer envision it as part of a return to Syria.

“Under Assad senior, there was a clear sense that Syria was the homeland, and loyalty to Syria was an integral part of one’s identity,” Khateeb told The Times of Israel, referring to Hafez Assad, who ruled Syria from 1971 to his death in 2000. “But the tragedy on the soccer field was the first emotional and cognitive turning point. It reinforced the understanding that the security of Golan residents is first and foremost here in Israel, where they live, rather than in concepts of loyalty to a state across the border.”

A year later, the killings in Sweida would turbocharge those changes.

After the Sweida massacre, “hope died inside us,” Sabbagh said. “We’re all very disappointed. I cannot ever belong to a country that does not respect its own people. Here in Israel, my family is respected, and this is where I want to be.”

Last month, Syrian Druze leader Hikmat al-Hijri once again called for the minority to separate from Syria and become a “confederation” with Israel, saying that Israel is the “only country” that can protect........

© The Times of Israel