Israel has said that it carried out a strike in Syria on an armed group preparing to attack members of the Druze minority group.

In a statement, the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel's military carried out a warning operation.

It struck "an extremist group preparing to attack the Druze population in the town of Sahnaya," a statement from Netanyahu's office said.

The statement didn't give details about the warning operation.

Sahnaya lies around 15 kilometers (9 miles) southwest of Syria's capital Damascus.

Its residents are mostly from Syria's Druze and Christian minorities.

The Druze are an Arab minority who practice a religion originally derived from Islam. More than half of the roughly 1 million Druze worldwide live in Syria, with a heavy concentration in the south.

The Israeli statement added that "a serious message was also conveyed to the Syrian regime," referring to Syria's new Islamist government.

The ousting of long-time ruler Bashad Assad in December 2024 by Sunni rebels left the country's minority groups, like the Druze, concerned that the new government wouldn't protect them.

Clashed between Druze and Sunni gunmen

Israel's strike comes as clashes in the southern suburbs of Damascus have been ongoing.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), a war monitor, said that the fighting was "between groups of local gunmen of the Druze community ... and forces affiliated to the ministries of defence and interior and other proxy forces."

The "fierce clashes" with light and medium weapons in Ashrafiyat Sahnaya were still ongoing on Wednesday morning, SOHR said. 

It added that Syrian government forces are sending reinforcements toward Sahnaya.

On Tuesday, bloody clashes in the mostly Druze town of Jaramana city left 17 people dead, SOHR said, highlighting the deepening sectarian tensions in the region.

Israeli defense of Druze

Since the fall of President Bashar Assad in December, Israel has pushed its forces into southern Syria to create a demilitarized buffer zone.

"Israel will not allow harm to the Druze community in Syria out of a deep commitment to our Druze brothers in Israel, who are connected by family and historical ties to their Druze brothers in Syria," the statement released by Netanyahu said.

Israeli authorities have repeatedly voiced support for Syria's Druze.

Thousands of Druze also live in Israel and in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

Edited by: Jenipher Camino Gonzalez