It’s not even 10am, but already the Galilee sun is prickling the back of my neck. I’m standing outside a war room set up in the community centre of the village of Julis, watching a delegation of 200 Druze men arrive.

One by one, they make their way up the steep path – most dressed in their trademark black robes, baggy trousers, and white hats. They’ve come from across northern Israel to plead for their people on the other side of the border, where a quiet massacre has been unfolding in southern Syria.

‘Tomorrow it could be Europe or the US. These extremists will get stronger, and they will murder each and every one of us.’

Since the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad last year by Islamist-led rebels, Syria has been consumed by sectarian violence. In the southern province of Sweida, where the

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