1. Executive Summary
This expanded joint investigation by Suwayda Press and Syrians for Truth and Justice (STJ) analyzes the media and digital discourse that accompanied the As-Suwayda massacres of July 2025, focusing on the official platforms of the transitional authority, as well as on the media outlets and public accounts that repeatedly adopted its narrative or its political and security vocabulary in covering the events. The report examines how these narratives contributed to mobilizing the public, deepening sectarian polarization, justifying armed mobilization, or downplaying the gravity of the violations committed against civilians, women and men alike.
The investigation focuses on the discourse that preceded and accompanied the third wave of violence, when certain narratives—such as “the rescue of the tribes,” “extending state control,” and “the Israeli project”—shifted from political or security characterizations of events into instruments of mobilization and polarization. The circulation of these narratives across multiple media outlets and digital platforms helped entrench collective perceptions rooted in fear and threat, blur the distinction between civilians and combatants, and reinforce a logic of collective responsibility.
The investigation includes a quantitative and qualitative analysis of a sample of public posts on the Facebook platform, comprising 11,118 posts published between 17 July and 17 August 2025, with the aim of examining patterns of engagement, hashtags, the language of the discourse, and indicators of disinformation and incitement.
The findings point to troubling trends in digital discourse that cannot be reduced to spontaneous reactions to events. The report recorded a sharp surge in posting intensity coinciding with developments on the ground, and a clear repetition of the same narratives and hashtags across specific pages and accounts, reinforcing indications of coordinated or directed publishing patterns.
The danger of these patterns lies in the fact that they did not merely report or comment on the news; they helped create a media and social environment more receptive to mobilization and retaliatory violence, and weakened public debate over the responsibility of armed actors for the violations committed against civilians. The report highlights the role that digital media can play—when coupled with mobilizing political rhetoric and disinformation—in inflaming local conflicts and threatening the social fabric.
2. Background
Between 13 and 19 July 2025, As-Suwayda governorate witnessed a wave of armed attacks that included killings, enforced disappearance, abduction, looting, destruction of property, and sexual and gender-based violence against women and girls. Violent sectarian clashes, sparked by looting and acts of revenge between the Bedouin and Druze communities, escalated into large-scale violence involving local militias, forces of the Syrian transitional authorities, and armed groups affiliated with them.
According to the report of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria, the events unfolded in three main waves of violence. In the first wave, which the Commission described as the deadliest, government forces, accompanied by tribal fighters, committed large-scale violations against Druze civilians between 14 and 16 July, particularly in the west of As-Suwayda governorate and in As-Suwayda city. These violations included killings, torture, arbitrary detention, and looting, as well as summary executions of men identified as Druze after they had been separated from the women and children.
The second wave began on 17 July, following the withdrawal of government forces in the wake of the Israeli airstrikes that hit positions in As-Suwayda and Damascus. During this phase, neighborhoods inhabited by Bedouin tribes came under retaliatory attacks carried out by local armed groups, according to the International Commission of Inquiry.
The third wave, which the Commission described as the most destructive, took place between late on 17 July and 19 July and was carried out by tribal fighters who had been mobilized to advance toward As-Suwayda. This wave again targeted Druze civilians in sweeping acts of revenge, including the burning and looting of homes, shops, and religious sites in some 35 majority-Druze or mixed villages, as well as the killing of civilians and the abduction of others. The Commission also noted that some members of the government forces removed their military uniforms and joined those attacks.
According to the Commission’s report, the three waves of violence left more than 1,707 people dead, the majority of them Druze. Among the dead, the report documented 1,190 men, 99 women, 22 boys, and 31 girls from the Druze community, in addition to the killing of 53 men, 9 women, 5 boys, and 3 girls from the Bedouin community.
The joint team that prepared this report, for its part, carried out an independent documentation effort, drawing on the forensic medicine lists of the National Hospital in As-Suwayda and cross-checking names against burial records and local families, and concluded by documenting 1,520 victims from the Druze community.
According to what has been documented, these waves were accompanied by a deeply polarized media and digital environment in which mobilization narratives, unverified news, hate speech, and disinformation proliferated. This climate helped fuel the justification of acts of violence and widen the scope of mobilization, particularly during the third wave of the events, which constitutes a central focus of this report.