Israel says strikes Syria to shield Druze as clashes spread

Israel struck Syria on Wednesday in what it called a “warning” against attacks on the Druze minority, in a military intervention that came as sectarian clashes spread near Damascus, killing 13 people.

The sectarian violence, and Israel’s intervention, present huge challenges to the Islamist authorities who overthrew longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad in December, and follow massacres last month in Syria’s Alawite coastal heartland.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel “carried out a…