When Syria’s nearly 14-year civil war concluded last year with the removal of dictator Bashar al-Assad, many Syrians initially felt a surge of hope, anticipating a long-awaited return to the homes and lands they had been forced to abandon.
The brutal conflict had uprooted more than half of the nation’s population, sending millions fleeing to neighboring countries while countless others sought refuge within their own borders.
However, the country’s challenging transition to new leadership has, unexpectedly, triggered fresh waves of displacement. This new turmoil is fueled by a volatile mix of revenge attacks, escalating sectarian violence, deep-seated property disagreements stretching back decades, and the ongoing Israeli occupation of land in southern Syria.
Between December 2024 and July 2025, over 430,000 Syrians were newly displaced, as reported by the United Nations. This recent wave of upheaval has spared no community, impacting diverse religious and ethnic groups across multiple regions of the country.
The largest movements of people occurred in the southern province of Sweida, where deadly clashes erupted during the summer. The fighting initially pitted the Druze, a dominant religious minority in Sweida, against their Bedouin neighbors.
Reem al-Hawaren, a Bedouin resident of a nearby village, recounted watching in fear for over a week as violence consumed Sweida’s provincial capital in early July. Long-simmering tensions between the Druze and the Bedouins, descendants of nomadic tribes, quickly escalated into bloodshed.
The conflict rapidly drew in forces allied with the government in Damascus and took on a pronounced sectarian dimension. The Bedouins, much like Syria’s new leadership, belong to the country’s Sunni Muslim majority.
Druze militias maintaining control over Sweida Province have openly resisted government efforts to incorporate them into the national military and to bring the entire province under the new national authority. This resistance is part of a wider government initiative to unify the nation following the fragmentation caused by the civil war, which divided Syria into numerous zones of control.
As the clashes intensified in Sweida’s provincial capital, Ms. al-Hawaren noted that her own village, al-Shahba, situated roughly 10 miles away, remained calm. Like Sweida, al-Shahba was home to a mixed population of Druze and Bedouins.
However, everything changed on the morning of July 17. Druze gunmen ascended to the roof of a building near her home and issued a stark ultimatum: all Bedouin residents were to leave within the hour, according to Ms. al-Hawaren, 43, and her husband, Muhammad, 42.
She and her family sought refuge in a relative’s home, enduring three days of sheer terror. Subsequently, the Syrian Red Crescent evacuated her family and hundreds of other Bedouins by bus.
They eventually arrived on the outskirts of the capital, Damascus, where they have been sheltering for months. Despite the immense dangers they faced during the violence, Ms. al-Hawaren insists they are desperate to return home.
“On what basis did they force us to leave our homes?” Ms. al-Hawaren, a civil servant with the local water authority, questioned, referring to the Druze gunmen. “It’s my home, my land. Of course I’m going to return.”
From the hotel where her family now resides, Ms. al-Hawaren recalled terrifying moments when Druze gunmen commanded her and her neighbors to abandon their homes. Moments later, she heard a burst of gunfire.
It was only later that she learned six of her family members, including her 85-year-old mother-in-law and 7-year-old niece, Taj, had been killed, a tragic detail confirmed by both her and her husband.
The Syrian Network for Human Rights reported that more than 1,300 people were killed in the violence, with nearly 400 of them civilians, predominantly Druze. Another monitoring group provided an even higher death toll.
The New York Times independently verified at least one execution of a Druze civilian by government security forces and documented four additional executions of Druze civilians, some carried out by men in military uniforms.
Other waves of violence, similar to those in Sweida and often fueled by sectarian tensions, have compelled tens of thousands of Syrians to abandon their homes since the government transition last December. Disputes over land and property ownership also contribute significantly to this displacement.
According to the U.N. refugee agency, over 12 million people—more than half of Syria’s prewar population of 23 million—were displaced either internally or externally during the civil war. Since Mr. al-Assad’s removal, at least 2.8 million have managed to return, as reported by the United Nations.
In several land disputes, individuals attempting to reclaim their property have sought to evict current occupants, according to reports from U.N. officials, local police, and various rights groups.
While some of these contested lands were seized during the civil war, other property conflicts trace their origins back many decades.
Many of these cases are rooted in the Assad regime’s historical practice of expropriating land from certain communities and reallocating it to members of more favored groups, such as the Alawites—a religious minority to which the Assad family belongs.
Consequently, many Alawites now find themselves in a precarious position.
In late August, hundreds of Alawites fled al-Soumariya, a Damascus suburb. This exodus followed warnings from security forces about impending inspections of property ownership deeds by the governor’s office, which were then followed by a raid, according to local residents and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based war monitoring group.
The day after the town was informed about the deed inspections, armed men affiliated with the new government stormed homes and briefly detained local residents, as reported by a local official and a resident, both of whom requested anonymity due to fears of reprisal.
In the days that followed, Maher Marwan Idlibi, the governor of Damascus Province, told state media that the events in al-Soumariya were a direct consequence of decades of illegal land seizures and corrupt real estate practices under the former Assad regime.
Mr. Idilbi urged residents to allow the relevant authorities to adjudicate property ownership, cautioning them against taking matters into their own hands “lest chaos arise,” according to state media reports.
One 32-year-old Alawite woman, who also requested anonymity for fear of retribution, stated that she and other residents had prepared their property documents for the anticipated inspections by a government committee. Instead, they were shocked by the arrival of armed forces.
She described nearly two dozen officers in military uniforms, some masked, entering her neighborhood, breaking down her door, and dragging her out by her hair while hurling sectarian insults at her and her brothers.
The only reason she hasn’t joined her neighbors in leaving, she explained, is her lack of financial resources and nowhere else to go.
When questioned about the allegations of violence and verbal abuse, the Information Ministry stated that al-Soumariya residents “were residing on state-owned land unlawfully” and had been formally notified by the official civilian authority. It further added that security forces intervened only after fights broke out among residents and that no reports of violence by the forces themselves were made.
In the southern province of Quneitra, close to the Israeli border, Israeli forces invaded Syrian towns just days after the Assad regime was ousted last December.
Since then, Israel has reportedly expanded its presence in the area, leading to the destruction of homes and the displacement of civilians, according to local officials and Human Rights Watch.
“Israel’s military forces operating in Syria should not have a free hand to seize homes, demolish them, and drive families out,” stated Hiba Zayadin, a senior Syria researcher at Human Rights Watch.
Local officials and residents confirmed that at least dozens of families have been displaced as a direct result of these actions.
Israel has characterized these incursions as temporary measures aimed at safeguarding its own security interests.