An elderly Druze Sheikh died after being publicly humiliated by the Syrian Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) rebel group on Tuesday, the Syria Justice Archive on X/Twitter reported on Wednesday.
Sources close to the sheikh, Marhej Shahine, 80, confirmed his death after a viral video circulated online showing him having his beard shaved off as a humiliation tactic by members of HTS in al-Tha'la, the western countryside of Sweida.
Shahine's granddaughter, Syrian journalist Christine Shahine, wrote on Facebook, "My grandfather was martyred!
"He lived his whole life with dignity, his whole life his home was open for good, he raised us on goodness…my grandfather refused to leave his home, waiting to bury his grandson!
"My grandfather didn’t sell his land, nor his home, nor his children…His beard and the pain in his eyes are on your conscience until Judgment Day, you traitors.”
Saudi author Aimen Dean posted the video of Shahine being humiliated and addressed the Syrian president, interior minister, and defense minister.
"If you want the world to see Syria as a serious, sovereign nation-state, then teach your army to act like one," he wrote. "Shaving the beard and mustache of an elderly Druze man of faith - humiliating him like that - is not the act of a civilized state. It's disgraceful.
"You want global respect? Start by respecting your own people. Especially your minority elders. Especially your minority religious figures. For God's sake, act like the civilized nation you claim to be."
"We want to see the perpetrators in this shameful video arrested and made an example of," he concluded.
IDF prepares for days of battles in Sweida
As of Wednesday afternoon, the IDF had undertaken 160 aerial attacks on Syrian regime forces in and around the vicinity of Sweida in southern Syria, where Israel says the regime's forces are slaughtering Syrian Druze.
In addition, the IDF has attacked and possibly destroyed Syria’s Defense Ministry and also attacked part of the Presidential Palace in Damascus. Dozens or more Syrian regime forces are said to have been killed in IDF attacks.
IDF sources said that the military is ready for a multi-day campaign to convince Syrian regime forces to withdraw from Sweida and leave the Syrian Druze their autonomy.
However, the IDF said that the situation for the Syrian Druze is desperate and that despite aerial attacks, if on Tuesday, the Druze controlled around 70% of Sweida, by Wednesday, regime forces controlled around 70% of the city.
In addition, the IDF said that the regime has around 200 militia men committing atrocities against the Druze in Sweida, while another 1,000 more official Syrian regime army forces have the city surrounded and cut off.
The IDF implied that the Syrian regime may use this model to try to have plausible deniability that it was not directly involved in atrocities, but the military said that intelligence suggests that the mixing of using militias to do the regime’s dirty work appears to have been planned.
At the same time, the IDF did not accuse the Syrian regime of provoking the current crisis.
Yonah Jeremy Bob contributed to this article.