Dozens of Syrian Druze make a rare visit to Israeli-controlled Golan Heights

MAJDAL SHAMS, Golan Heights (AP) — Dozens of clerics and others from Syria’s minority Druze community crossed into the Israeli-controlled side of the Golan Heights Friday for the first time in decades.

The nearly 100 Syrian Druze crossed the heavily-fortified border area in three buses, escorted by members of the Israeli military. They are expected to visit a religious shrine on the Israeli side of the border.

The rare visit comes three months after the end of a five-decade grip on power by the Assad family in Syria. Israel has said it is ready to protect the Druze of Syria if they come under attack by the country’s new rulers.

Many Druze have rejected Israel’s overtures, and critics accuse Israel of trying to weaken and divide Syria following the overthrow of President Bashar Assad.

Nevertheless, a group of Druze from the Israeli-controlled Golan heights welcomed the Syrian Druze at the crossing point who waved the multi-colored flag of the religious minority, chanting in Arabic “It is written on our doors, welcome to our beloved ones.”

“This is a historic visit between families. We have families inside (Syria), and they are the same when they come. They have families here,” said Majdal Shams, resident Jawlan Abu Zed. “They are religious men who are coming to visit the holy sites, just like our Sunni brothers who go to visit Mecca, just like our Christian brothers who go to visit the Vatican.”

The Druze is one of the Middle East's most insular religious sect, beginning as a 10th-century offshoot of Ismailism, a branch of Shiite Islam. Most Druze religious practices are shrouded in secrecy, with outsiders not allowed to convert.

Over half of the roughly 1 million Druze worldwide live in Syria. Most other Druze live in Lebanon and Israel and the Golan Heights, a rocky plateau seized from Syria by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war. Israel’s 1981 annexation of the area is recognized only by the United States, with the rest of the world considering it occupied Syrian territory.

Crossing from Syria into Israeli-controlled territory was restricted in the past. The religious leadership of the Druze sect in Lebanon have urged clerics not to visit Israel, saying those who do it will be violating its orders.

Although Israeli citizenship is open for the Druze of the Golan Heights, most have opted not to take it, though they have residency rights.

Some families are split apart by what is known as the Alpha Line, the start of a buffer zone that separates the Israeli-controlled area of the Golan Heights from Syria. They navigate their historically Syrian identity while living under Israeli rule. On the Syrian side of the border, the Druze generally adopted Arab nationalism, including support for the Palestinian cause.

The rare visit comes days after clashes between fighters loyal to Assad and forces of the country’s new Islamist rulers in Syria that sparked the worst violence Syria has seen since December, when insurgents led by the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS, overthrew Assad.

The clashes led to wave of revenge attacks in Syria’s coastal region by Sunni gunmen against members of the minority Alawite sect to which the Assad family belongs.

A war monitor said nearly 1,500 civilians, mostly Alawites, were killed within three days of clashes and shootings. The Associated Press could not independently confirm the figures.

Like many of Syria’s ethnic and religious minorities, the Druze are concerned about how the new transitional government will treat them, although authorities have promised to include them in the political process. Syria’s interim president, Ahamd al-Sharaa, is the leader of HTS, which was affiliated with al-Qaida’s branch in Syria.

The Druze delegation from Syria is scheduled to meet with the religious leader of the sect in Israel, Mowafaq Tarif, to discuss the conditions for the Druze of Syria.

On Sunday, Israel’s Defense Minister Israel Katz said Israel will allow Druze from Syria to enter the country for work although it is not clear when it will start.

Associated Press writer Bassem Mroue contributed to the report from Beirut.

Buses carrying members of the Syrian Druze community are welcomed by Druze clerics at the border with Syria, as they enter into the village of Majdal Shams, in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights, Friday, March 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)

Buses carrying members of the Syrian Druze community are welcomed by Druze clerics at the border with Syria, as they enter into the village of Majdal Shams, in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights, Friday, March 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)

Buses carrying members of the Syrian Druze community are welcomed by Druze clerics at the border with Syria, as they enter into the village of Majdal Shams, in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights, Friday, March 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)

Buses carrying members of the Syrian Druze community are welcomed by Druze clerics at the border with Syria, as they enter into the village of Majdal Shams, in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights, Friday, March 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)

Druze clerics stand near the border, as they wait for buses carrying members of the Syrian Druze community to cross from Syria in the village of Majdal Shams, in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights, Friday, March 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)

Israeli soldiers stand near members of the Druze community, holding Druze flags, as they wait for buses carrying members of the Syrian Druze community to cross from Syria into the village of Majdal Shams, located in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights, on Friday, March 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)

Druze men and boys stand near the border, as they wait for buses carrying members of the Syrian Druze community to cross from Syria in the village of Majdal Shams, located in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights, Friday, March 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)

Druze clerics stand near the border, as they wait for buses carrying members of the Syrian Druze community to cross from Syria in the village of Majdal Shams, in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights, Friday, March 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)

A boy holds a Druze flag as members of the Druze community and clerics wait near the border for buses carrying members of the Syrian Druze community to cross from Syria in the village of Majdal Shams, in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights, Friday, March 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)

Members of the Druze community and clerics wait near the border for buses carrying members of the Syrian Druze community to cross from Syria in the village of Majdal Shams, in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights, Friday, March 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)

Druze clerics stand near the border, as they wait for buses carrying members of the Syrian Druze community to cross from Syria in the village of Majdal Shams, in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights, Friday, March 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)

Buses carrying members of the Syrian Druze community are welcomed by Druze clerics at the border with Syria, as they enter into the village of Majdal Shams, in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights, Friday, March 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)

Druze men stand near the border, as they wait for buses carrying members of the Syrian Druze community to cross from Syria in the village of Majdal Shams, located in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights, Friday, March 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)

Israeli soldiers stand near members of the Druze community, holding Druze flags, as they wait for buses carrying members of the Syrian Druze community to cross from Syria into the village of Majdal Shams, located in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights, on Friday, March 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)

Members of the Druze community and clerics wait near the border for buses carrying members of the Syrian Druze community to cross from Syria in the village of Majdal Shams, in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights, Friday, March 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)

A member of the Syrian Druze community waves as he is welcomed by Druze clerics at the border with Syria, as he enters into the village of Majdal Shams, in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights, Friday, March 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)

Buses carrying members of the Syrian Druze community are welcomed by Druze clerics at the border with Syria, as seen from the village of Majdal Shams, in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights, Friday, March 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)

Druze clerics stand near the border, as they wait for buses carrying members of the Syrian Druze community to cross from Syria in the village of Majdal Shams, in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights, Friday, March 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)

President Donald Trump claimed Monday that pardons recently issued by Joe Biden to lawmakers and staff on the congressional committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot have no force because the-then president signed them with an autopen instead of by his own hand.

"In other words, Joe Biden did not sign them but, more importantly, he did not know anything about them!” Trump wrote on his social media site. Trump didn’t offer any evidence to support his claims. Nor did the White House.

Trump asserted in his post, in all caps, that the pardons are void and have no effect in his estimation. But presidents have broad authority to pardon or commute the sentences of whomever they please, the Constitution doesn’t specify that pardons must be in writing and autopen signatures have been used before for substantive actions by presidents.

Asked if White House lawyers had told Trump he has the legal authority to undo pardons signed by autopen, press secretary Karoline Leavitt said "the president was raising the point that did the president even know about these pardons? Was his legal signature used without his consent or knowledge and that’s not just the president or me raising those questions.”

She went on to cite recent reporting by the New York Post that quoted two unidentified Biden White House aides who speculated about alleged abuse of the autopen during his tenure.

Pressed for evidence that Biden was unaware of the pardons, Leavitt told the press corps at the daily briefing, “You're a reporter. You should find out.”

An autopen is a mechanical device that is used to replicate a person's authentic signature. A pen or other writing implement is held by an arm of the machine, which reproduces a signature after a writing sample has been fed to it. Presidents, including Trump, have used them for decades. Autopens aren't the same as an old-fashioned ink pad and rubber stamp or the electronic signatures used on PDF documents.

The Oversight Project at the conservative Heritage Foundation think tank recently said its analysis of thousands of pages of documents bearing Biden's signature found that most were by autopen, including pardons. Conservative media have amplified the claims, which have been picked up by Trump. He has commented for several days running about Biden's autopen use.

Mike Howell, the project's executive director, said in an interview that his team is scrutinizing Biden's pardons because that power lies only with the president under the Constitution and can't be delegated to another person or a machine. Howell said some of Biden's pardon papers also specify they were signed in Washington on days when he was elsewhere.

There is no law governing a president's use of an autopen.

A 2005 opinion from the Office of Legal Counsel at the Justice Department said an autopen can be used to sign legislation. Barack Obama became the first president to do so in May 2011 when he signed an extension of the Patriot Act. Obama was in France on official business and, with time running out before the law expired, he authorized use of the autopen to sign it into law.

Much earlier guidance on pardons was sent in 1929 from the solicitor general — the attorney who argues for the United States before the Supreme Court — to the attorney general. It says "neither the Constitution nor any statute prescribes the method by which executive clemency shall be exercised or evidenced."

Yes, but “only for very unimportant papers," he said on Monday.

He told reporters aboard Air Force One on Sunday night that, "we may use it, as an example, to send some young person a letter because it’s nice. You know, we get thousands and thousands of letters, letters of support for young people, from people that aren’t feeling well, etcetera. But to sign pardons and all of the things that he signed with an autopen is disgraceful.”

Trump remains angry at being prosecuted by the Justice Department over his actions in inspiring his supporters to go to the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in an attempt to stop lawmakers from certifying Biden's defeat of him in the 2020 election, though the case was dismissed after he won reelection. At the end of his term, Biden issued “preemptive pardons” to lawmakers and committee staff to protect them from any possible retribution from Trump.

On whether pardons must be in writing or by the president's own hand, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit has said the ”plain language of the Constitution imposes no such limitation.” Biden’s statement accompanying those pardons make clear they were official acts, said Carl Tobias, professor at the University of Richmond law school.

Biden issued hundreds of commutations or pardons, including to members of his family, also because he feared possible prosecution by Trump and his allies.

Trump vigorously used such powers at the opening of his presidency, issuing one document — a proclamation — granting pardons and commutations to all 1,500-plus people charged in the insurrection at the Capitol.

Presidents also use an autopen to sign routine correspondence to constituents, like letters recognizing important life milestones.

During the Gerald Ford administration, the president and first lady Betty Ford occasionally signed documents and other correspondence by hand but White House staff more often used autopen machines to reproduce their signatures on letters and photographs.

Leavitt is one of three Trump administration officials who face a lawsuit from The Associated Press on First- and Fifth-amendment grounds. The AP says the three are punishing the news agency for editorial decisions they oppose. The White House says the AP is not following an executive order to refer to the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America.

President Joe Biden,signs a presidential memorandum that will establish the first-ever White House Initiative on Women's Health Research in the Oval Office of the White House, Monday, Nov. 13, 2023, in Washington. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

Damilic Corp. president Bob Olding anchors a sheet of paper as the Atlantic Plus, the Signascript tabletop model autopen, produces a signature at their Rockville, Md., office, June 13, 2011. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta, File)