The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said the Damascus headquarters served as a command center for deploying regime forces to Suwayda, a southern Syrian region gripped by days of deadly clashes between government troops, Druze militias, and Bedouin groups.

That understanding was based on comments from the U.S. special envoy and security talks with Israel, sources said.

Iran’s Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf has warned that Israel’s recent strikes on Damascus signal a wider agenda of destabilization, disarmament, and division across the Islamic world.

Israeli warplanes pounded Syrian government buildings in Damascus, escalating its campaign against Syria’s new authorities amid heavy clashes between government forces and the country’s Druze minority.

Syria's Sweida province has been engulfed by nearly a week of violence triggered by clashes between Bedouin fighters and Druze factions. Earlier on Friday, an Israeli official said Israel agreed to allow Syrian forces limited access to the Sweida area of southern Syria for the next two days.

The Syrian government says clashes in the southern city of Suwayda have stopped after a week of violence left hundreds of people dead, drawing Israeli intervention and US condemnation.

A strong central government in Damascus appeals to Trump but not to his allies in Israel. Once again, images of horrifying violence are pouring out of Syria: dead bodies piled up in a hospital corridor. Gunmen calling out insults as they drive their cars over the corpses of murdered civilians.

Several days of bitter sectarian fighting in the south of Syria has brought the fledgling government in Damascus dangerously close to direct conflict with Israel, after Israeli warplanes launched strikes against government buildings in the Syrian capital, Damascus, on July 16.