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LONDON: White House officials have expressed frustration over Israel’s bombing of Syria, The Times reported.

Israel carried out a series of attacks on government targets in the Syrian Arab Republic last week, including a strike on a tank convoy and the shelling of the Defense Ministry in Damascus.

US diplomats warned Israel to cease its intervention, which it claimed to be conducting in support of Syria’s Druze minority.

Clashes between local Bedouin and Druze forces had broken out in Syria’s southern province of Sweida, with the country’s government sending troops to quell the violence.

One White House official told Axios that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “acted like a madman. He bombs everything all the time. This could undermine what (US President Donald) Trump is trying to do.”

Trump lifted sanctions on Syria earlier this year after meeting President Ahmad Al-Sharaa, who has pledged to unite his country and bring an end to more than a decade of violence.

The US brokered a ceasefire last week that appeared to stop the clashes in Sweida, where more than 1,000 people were killed over seven days, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The violence was reportedly sparked by a series of kidnappings targeting members of various faiths, clans and tribal groups in the province.

Before launching strikes, Israel claimed that Syrian government forces were involved in targeting the Druze.

Israel has its own community of Druze, numbering about 130,000, and some Syrian members of the faith traveled to meet family members there to escape the violence in Sweida.

After the overthrow of Bashar Assad’s regime last year, Israel sent forces into Sweida to establish a buffer zone. The province borders Syria’s Golan Heights, which Israel has occupied since 1967.

Another US official told Axios: “Netanyahu is sometimes like a child who just won’t behave.”

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Sunday urged Al-Sharaa to halt the violence in his country, which he described as “horrifying and dangerous.”

The “rape and slaughter of innocent people, which has and is still occurring, must end,” Rubio said on X, adding that Syrian authorities “must hold accountable and bring to justice anyone guilty of atrocities including those in their own ranks.”

White House officials also described growing consternation over Israel’s war on Gaza, especially after the shelling of the Palestinian enclave’s only Catholic church last week. The attack killed three Palestinians.

A senior American official told Axios after the church strike: “The feeling is that every day there is something new … what the f***?”

Mike Huckabee, US ambassador to Israel, also delivered surprise public criticism in the wake of an arson attack on a Byzantine-era church in the occupied West Bank over the weekend.

“To commit an act of sacrilege by desecrating a place that is supposed to be a place of worship, it is an act of terror, and it is a crime,” he said. “There should be consequences.”

He also demanded “accountability” from Israel after a Palestinian American was killed in the West Bank last week.

VATICAN CITY: Pope Leo spoke by phone on Monday to the president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmud Abbas, about the conflict in Gaza and violence in the West Bank, the Vatican said.
It was the first official conversation between the two men since Leo’s papacy began.
“The Holy Father repeated his appeal for international humanitarian law to be fully respected, emphasising in particular the obligation to protect civilians and sacred places, the prohibition of the indiscriminate use of force and of the forced transfer of the population,” the Vatican wrote.
The pope emphasized “the urgent need to provide assistance to those most vulnerable to the consequences of the conflict and to allow the adequate entry of humanitarian aid,” it said.
It followed a call on Friday between the pope and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a day after a strike by Israel on Gaza’s only Catholic Church that killed three people.
On Sunday, Leo condemned the “barbarity” of the war in Gaza and again called for a peaceful resolution.
The Holy See, which supports a two-state solution, formally recognized the state of Palestine through an agreement signed in 2015, one of the first states in Europe to do so.
In 2014, Israeli and Palestinian presidents Shimon Peres and Abbas planted an olive tree alongside Pope Francis in the Vatican gardens.