Sweida, Syria – The first video begins with Hosam Saraya, a 35 -year -old American Syrian and seven other members of his family, walking in a procession on a street, with his hands placed on the person's shoulders in front of them, escorted by men armed with fatigue and waving assault rifles.
One of the gunmen says: “We gave you a safe passage”, while others shout religious slogans.
Another video filmed on July 16 cuts Saraya and his kneeling relatives in the middle of a roundabout. One of the gunmen talks to a family member, his voice becomes more threatening as his anger increases. Then the shooting begins, and Saraya and the others collapse to the ground.
Saraya, a member of the religious minority Druze, lived in Oklahoma, but had returned to the family home in the city of most of the Sweida to take care of her sick father, relatives said.
“His father improved, and he was supposed to return to Oklahoma in a month. We are in total disbelief and shock,” said an American relative who refused to be identified, fearing reprisals against his family in Syria. “We never think something like this could happen to us.”
Saraya studied finance and accounting at the University of Damascus before moving to the United States in 2014, where she obtained a MBA at the Christian University of Oklahoma. Subsequently, he worked as a manager of Operations in a senior home care company and became an American citizen. I was single.
Saraya was among the 1,380 people killed in a spasm of sectarian violence that extended through Sweida, when he fought between the Bedouin clans and the Drusos militiamen intensified in armed clashes that were based on the government and Israel of Syria, who said he intervened to protect the community of Duzze.
The government forces were supposed to annul any struggle between Bedouins and Druss, the residents and residents of Saraya say. Instead, they left a trace of looting and ardent houses and the execution of more than 230 civilians, according to the Syrian Observatory of Human Rights, a war monitor.
The members of the Druze community in the heights of Golan annexed by Israel gather for a manifestation in solidarity with the Druze community in Syria on July 19.
(Jalaa Marey / AFP through Getty Images)
This week, Senator James Lankford (R-Okla.) He said he was “disconsolate” for Saraya's death, who said “was an Oklahoman … tragically executed together with other family members in Syria.”
Family members in the United States said they had been interviewed by the FBI. The Syrian government has not yet reached the family here, but said it would hold all government forces for violations.
Violence, the third round of sectarian struggle to hit Syria since the new Islamist government knocked down the president of a lot of Bashar Assad nine months ago, threatens to achieve the disintegration of a country that struggles to advance since its 14 -year civil war.
In Saraya's house in Sweida, the signs of violence are everywhere: walls marked by shrapnel of a grenade of hand and photos and family mirrors cracked by bullet holes. Sitting purple in the midst of destruction, one of his relatives, Dima Saraya, 41, told what she described as a living nightmare that left her a widow.
The majority of the family slept when men armed with fatigue surrounded the house around 6 in the morning, shooting the door lock before breaking into the house.
Awaked by the shock, the men told the women and the children who stay inside while they went out to stop the gunmen.
“They had no weapons. If they did, those people would have killed them on the spot,” Dima said, added that one of the combatants, who identified himself as Abu Jaafar, said he was part of the general government security apparatus and that they should come with him.
When the men refused to go, the fighters responded with a bullet spray, a hand grenade and two grenades propelled by rockets to the upper floor. They decided to surrender and when Saraya and the others introduced themselves, Dima and the others ran, crying and supplicating that men stay. One of the fighters pointed his rifle to Dima's chest and told him to enter before he shot him.
Later, Dima said, after the gunmen finished looking at home, their leader reassured her: “Do not worry. We will not hurt them. In two hours, or in the morning, they will return. I promise that they will be safe.”
“By then he had already killed them,” Dima said.
Member of Syria's civil defense works after an Israeli air attack at the headquarters of the Ministry of Defense of Syria on July 16, 2025 in Damascus. The strikes come in the midst of a scaling in conflict between the Syrian government forces and the Druze militia in the city of southern Sweida. (Ali Haj Suleiman / Getty Images)
Smoke Olayo during clashes in the predominantly Sweida Druse on July 15, 2025. (Shadi al-Dubaisi / AFP through Getty Images)
After the gunmen left, others soon followed. Every time a new group arrived, they accused the family of hidden weapons and registered the house. Every time they looted: a fighter demanded the gold necklace in Dima's neck and the jewels of the other women. Another asked for the keys of one of the cars below. Another, in an anger attack, threatened to rape Dima.
When the last band of combatants arrived, it was 2:30 in the afternoon. They said they would execute everyone at home, Dima said, but then one of the combatants said: “Leave them. There are beautiful women among them.”
Again they demanded jewels or car keys, but Dima replied that there was nothing left. When the combatants went out to continue looting, Dima and another 14 family members ran to a neighbor's house and closed the door, remained silent and hoping not to be noticed.
“We did not dare to look for anyone. We were too terrified,” Dima said.
That night, when the videos of the murders, many of them taken happily by the gunmen themselves while tortured and executed druse, appeared on social networks, the Saraya family looked for signs of their loved ones. It was not until the next morning that someone came to the door and told them to come to collect the bodies of their relatives.
That task fell to another relative, Mutassem Jbaai.
“Each body had more than 50 bullet holes. There was blood everywhere. It was as if they were shattered,” he said, making a grimace in memory.
The members of the Druze community of Syria attend a funeral for their members who were killed in the recent sectarian clashes, in the Salkhad village in the Government of South Suwaya of Syria in May.
(Shadi al-Dubaisi / AFP through Getty Images)
The United States Department of State said Thursday that he was having direct discussions with the Syrian government about Saraya's murder, and requested “immediate investigation,” according to department spokesman for the department Tommy Pigott.
“Hosam and his family deserve justice, and those responsible for this atrocity must be responsible,” said Pigott.
However, among the Saraya family, few believe that the Syrian government will do anything to bring justice. They indicate the previous episodes of sectarian blood spill that have become unpunished.
“We can't live like this. When Assad fell, we had a little hope and gave them a chance,” said the American relative. “But as the saying goes,” once a terrorist, always a terrorist. “”
