Israel said on Monday that it was willing to defend Syria's Druze community following days of violence in Syria that a war monitor said led to mass killings of another religious minority.

Syria’s Druze minority is trying to navigate a new, uncertain Syria. Members of the small religious sect find themselves caught between two forces that many of them distrust: the new, Islamist-led government in Damascus and Syria’s hostile neighbor,

Members of the small religious sect find themselves caught between two forces that many of them distrust: the new, Islamist-led government in Damascus and Syria’s hostile neighbor, Israel, which has used the plight of the Druze as a pretext to intervene in the country.