Suwayda is passing through a historical turning point: before and after the massacres of July 14, 2025. The massacre struck many homes, including the Chehayeb family, where seven unarmed civilians were killed.
The victims were the parents: Ayman Chehayeb (60), who spent his life working at Suwayda Hospital after graduating from the Health Institute, and his wife Faten Asaad Choukeir; their two sons Omar (30), who had completed studies at the Institute of Informatics, and Hussein (27), who had started studying commerce and economics at university but fled with his brother to Lebanon to avoid serving in Assad’s army and to work there to support their parents financially. Also killed were Amjad Chehayeb (59), a civil engineer, and his two sons Ayham (17), an outstanding student who was about to start scientific baccalaureate studies this year, and Anas (15), whose middle-school passing results were issued less than a month after he was killed.
“How Did They Kidnap Me After They Killed Them All?”
“How did they not allow me to run my fingers through their hair? How did they not let me say goodbye? How did they end up buried and I wasn’t able to wail over them? How did I fail to describe them, to list their qualities, their kindness, their nobility? How did I not bury them and hold the mourning they deserve? How did I not hear people’s prayers of mercy for them with my own ears? How did they not let me cry for them a cry large enough to fill the universe?”
Faten falls silent for a moment, gasps, then continues: “Why did they make me live through days of terror in Daraa first, and then keep me from returning to my family in Suwayda or Qrayya because the road was cut off and full of killing and snipers? Why did I have to go to Jaramana and spend a month and a half living all the emotions of loss alone? Without my brothers and sisters around me, without my father to stand by me, without my neighbors and townspeople who knew my children…”
She sighs and goes on in a trembling voice: “By God, if you only knew how tender, kind, and well-mannered my sons were—how beautiful… they never carried a weapon in their lives, they didn’t even know what a weapon is. They were innocent. And my brother-in-law’s children are truly angels—excellent at school, polite, beautiful. My sons and my brother-in-law’s sons were not just any children, truly… Imagine, Maysoun, they left their studies and went to Lebanon to work and help us. They told me: you’ve grown older, it’s our turn now. You can’t imagine what horrible exile they endured to send money to me and their father, always telling me, ‘Mother, spend and live, we won’t let you need anything ever.’”
She adds: “Do you know I used to pass every day by the clothing shops to pick outfits for Omar and coordinate them? Omar, the groom I was about to get engaged; and Hussein, that young man—glory to the One who created him with that face, that beauty, that kindness… Oh, how they honored me in life and even in death. And if you’d seen how much my husband Ayman tried to protect them, to shield them. Ever since they came back from Lebanon I was so afraid, my heart tight, unable to sleep. I didn’t want them to come at all this summer, but they refused; they wanted to come and try to take us with them to Lebanon because they were afraid for us. After what happened in Jaramana, Sahnaya, and Ashrafiyat Sahnaya, they were no longer reassured about the situation in Suwayda. They’d tease me and laugh: ‘Don’t worry about us, we’re not going to die.’”
“They loved life and joy; they always filled the house with laughter, jokes, warmth. But fate brought them here, they came only to be killed by those beasts with no shred of humanity… In a moment they took from me what was most precious. They killed them without guilt; they killed them and killed my heart with them. I envy their father because he went with them. If only they had killed me with them—if only, a thousand if only.”
Faten falls silent, then weeps, and continues: “When they sprayed them with bullets, they perforated my heart and soul. My God, the sound of gunfire, how hideous! My mind flew away—I went mad. My sister-in-law and I started screaming. I dropped to my knees, pounding the ground with my hands and elbows until they bled. I was calling for some power to tell me: no, they’re not dead; no, these bullets didn’t pierce their tender flesh. No, my God, no—why, my God? These are young men and children, what did they do? What did they do, my God? And my heart surged toward them.”
The Massacre, Day After Day…
Faten regains her balance a little after I ask her to recount every detail from the beginning. She switches into formal Arabic:
“I still remember the day when it all began. It was Sunday, 13/07/2025. Clashes broke out in the al-Maqous neighborhood in the city of Suwayda between local factions and fighters from Bedouin tribes who live in the neighborhood. We had woken up in our home in an area called Tariq al-Tha‘la in Suwayda city—my husband, my two young sons, who had returned only ten days earlier from Lebanon where they had been working.”
“We began to hear continuous gunfire coming from the direction of al-Maqous, increasing throughout the day. Then we began to hear clashes in the western villages of Suwayda and the sounds of shells as well. On Sunday evening, electricity and internet were completely cut off from the city, and the sounds and shelling continued until dawn.
“On the morning of Monday, 14/07/2025, the clashes continued in Suwayda’s western countryside and the electricity and internet remained cut. The number of people fleeing increased. On Tuesday, 15/07/2025, we heard that security forces had entered Suwayda and there was a ceasefire for a short while, then we learned that the forces reneged on the agreement and the indiscriminate shelling of civilians continued. News spread of the execution of a large number of civilians in the al-Radwan clan guesthouse in the city, and of the execution of members of the Qordab family and many from the Saraya family.”
“In the late afternoon and early evening, heavy fighting resumed, with Grad rockets, mortar fire, and drones. The intensity of the shelling and rockets increased; electricity and internet were cut off completely. We lived in real terror. I feared the house would collapse on us. We couldn’t leave the house at all. All of us, my family and my husband’s brother’s family, gathered in the living room farthest from the exterior walls. Then the General Security forces, along with people who looked foreign to the area, began entering between the alleyways. We watched them surreptitiously from the windows, then quickly returned to the living room. Their massive entry was accompanied by loud, frequent chants of ‘Allahu Akbar’; every time they killed someone, they chanted. They would storm houses in a barbaric way.”
“This happened to us the same day. A group entered first from General Security, with others carrying the ISIS flag, others calling themselves the ‘Supporters of the Sunnah’ forces, and the Counter-Terrorism forces. They entered the house saying they were searching for weapons. We assured them we had never owned any weapons, that our two sons were university students who had been working in Lebanon and had only returned to take us with them. But they searched the house and turned it upside down.”
“They found nothing. Then they demanded all the gold and money we had, took our phones as well, and left. That same day, we found a family—a man named Raouf al-Shuqayfan, his wife, his seventy-year-old mother, and their two young children (8 and 10)—sitting in the street in front of the house, fleeing their burned home with nowhere to go. We took them in and brought them into our house. We told them: ‘Whatever happens to us happens to you.’”
Faten says that on the morning of Wednesday, July 16, the shelling intensified with all kinds of weapons and snipers. It eased somewhat at midday as the attacking forces withdrew. “We began to discover the terrifying extent of the destruction, just as we began to find the large number of bodies lying in the streets of our neighborhood, our neighbors and townspeople. We found the body of our ninety-year-old neighbor, an elderly woman who was hard of hearing and lived alone; her body was on the balcony. We also found the body of a man from the Halabi family; it smelled foul and had begun decomposing. My husband, sons, and my husband’s brother went out to help the other young men of the quarter move more than twenty bodies and try to bury them. We felt it was impossible to leave the house for anywhere because the shelling flared up again in the evening.”
She notes that on Thursday, 17/07/2025, they discovered hundreds of new bodies in Suwayda city—on squares, roads, in homes and basements. Large groups from the Bedouin tribes spread out, their appearance different from General Security. The chants of “Allahu Akbar” grew louder.
On Friday, July 18, 2025, the shelling quieted somewhat, “but the city was utterly destroyed, columns of smoke rising from every direction,” Faten says. “We started hearing of new massacres at the hospital and at the Directorate of Urban Development. That night I felt my heart roasting on a fire. I sat in the doorway of the boys’ room, praying and crying. My husband told me, ‘Don’t be afraid, nothing will happen to them. They have nothing to do with anything; they’ve never been involved in politics or weapons. Trust in God and go to sleep.’ But sleep never came.”
“The Worst Day of My Entire Life”
Saturday, July 19, 2025—at this date Faten stops speaking in formal Arabic, as if no language could contain this grief. She gasps:
“This is the worst date in my entire life. We were sitting in the living room—me, my husband Ayman, my two sons, my brother-in-law Amjad, his two sons Ayham and Anas, and their mother Amal Zein al-Din, and the family we were hosting. The chants grew so loud, close to the house. Then a group of more than six men stormed in. Some wore General Security insignia, some the Counter-Terrorism patch, some had red headbands, others black; most were tribesmen, masked, with long beards and eyes that sparked with malice—murder in their gaze. There were even fighters with them who couldn’t speak Arabic.”
“They smashed in the back door and all rushed in. We told them we had no weapons, that others had come two days earlier and searched and took everything. They didn’t listen. They shouted for the men to go outside into the back courtyard. They took all the men, my two sons, my husband, my brother-in-law, his two sons, and the man who was our guest. When we tried to follow them out, they shouted at us: ‘Women inside!’ When we didn’t obey and tried to go after them, they started shooting at our legs. We were terrified; we went into the room and they locked us in.”
Her voice catches as she continues: “Just minutes later, we heard the most horrible, unbearable sound in the world — the sound of heavy gunfire, endless bursts. We knew instantly that they had killed them all. My sister-in-law, the guest woman staying with us, and I rushed to the window — and there they were, all of them lying on the ground, dead. All of them. All of them. We started screaming — me, my sister-in-law Amal, our guest, and the guest’s elderly mother. They shouted back at us, ‘These are your Druze men and sons, the pigs — they’re dead, and we’re rid of them!’
Then one of the men who didn’t speak Arabic looked at us after they’d finished killing our boys and said mockingly, ‘How are you feeling after liberation?’ In that moment,” Faten says, “I felt life itself had emptied out. The whole world collapsed inside my heart.”
The “Kidnapping” Journey
Faten continues: “A short while later, two men came — one from the General Security forces and one from the tribes, wearing a traditional robe. They told us they wanted to take us away to protect us — so no one else would come and kill us. We told them we didn’t want to go anywhere. We wanted to stay in our house and die beside our sons. But they pointed their weapons at us and said, ‘Cover yourselves and move, now.’ They let us wrap ourselves in bed sheets, covering our heads and bodies, and ordered us out. It was me, my sister-in-law, the woman guest and her young children, and the seventy-year-old mother of Raouf, the man we had sheltered. A General Security vehicle was waiting for us. They loaded us inside and drove off.”
Regaining her composure slightly, Faten resumes describing her abduction: “We kept asking them, ‘Where are you taking us?’ They said, ‘To General Security in Damascus — to protect you.’ The car drove through the streets of Suwayda, which no longer looked like Suwayda. It was a ghost city; death, smoke, blood, and fire everywhere. Burned buildings, destroyed facades, bodies and bloodied shoes… and blood with no bodies.
We saw it all with our own eyes along the road. Snipers were everywhere. To keep driving, the man in the robe who was at the wheel started yelling, ‘These are prisoners with us, don’t shoot!’”
“Before we even left Suwayda, the driver was hit by a bullet in the shoulder. The second man took the wheel and began asking if there was a medical point nearby. It was obvious he wasn’t from the area , he didn’t know the roads. Someone said the closest hospital was in Izra‘. We drove there, and along the road I saw large numbers of tribal fighters heading toward Suwayda. Every time a group of them or of General Security stopped us and asked who we were, the driver would answer, ‘They’re prisoners.’”
“When we reached Izra‘ hospital, our captors got busy treating the wounded driver in the emergency room. When the hospital director saw us, he started yelling: ‘I can’t keep women here — you’ll cause me a disaster! Tomorrow there will be a massacre here too!’ Then a group of Red Crescent workers arrived and took us in their vehicle without our kidnappers noticing, since they were still inside the emergency ward.
The Red Crescent men drove us to the home of a Christian family — a husband and wife — who were incredibly kind. They cried with us over our children, whom we had left behind swimming in their own blood. They fed us, gave us water, cared for us, even offered us some money. They were truly wonderful to us.”
From Suwayda to Bosra al-Sham… then Damascus!
“An hour later,” Faten continues, “the Red Crescent vehicle came again and quickly took us to a shelter center in Bosra al-Sham, where we stayed for three days. To be honest, they treated us decently there. The center held many women and children abducted from Suwayda, and we were allowed to make one brief phone call to our families to reassure them.”
“Those nights were filled with pain and unbearable torment. My sister-in-law and I were losing our minds over leaving our sons there alone. On the last day, we managed to call one of my husband’s relatives who lived farther from our house. We begged him just to go and bury them, we were terrified that stray dogs or wild animals would get to their bodies.
That afternoon, our relative called back saying he had barely managed to reach our home, and that he would bury them in the courtyard, because it was impossible to move them due to the heavy fighting. I asked him to take a picture before burying them, and he did. He sent me the photo — all of them, their faces pressed to the earth that had shown them more mercy than we, their mothers and wives. Thank God no animal had approached them. He buried them in the courtyard of the house that raised them, the house they loved so much, the house that had once echoed with their laughter, its most beautiful sound.”
“On the third day, the Red Crescent came and said they would be releasing us — me, my sister-in-law, and two other women from the Halabi family. I don’t know if our release was part of a prisoner exchange with General Security or something else, but I know I left behind many women there. Since the road back to Suwayda was completely unsafe, they asked where we wanted to go. I said, ‘To Jaramana — I have a nephew there, I’ll stay with him.’”
“After I arrived in Jaramana, I charged my phone and posted my children’s photos as my WhatsApp status. Then I received two messages from two different numbers belonging to my neighbors. They read: ‘So those are the ones who croaked? To hell they go — what a fitting end.’ Later, I found out those messages were indeed sent from my neighbors’ phones, which had been stolen by General Security. They had recognized my sons, my husband, and my brother-in-law’s sons from the photos, and wanted to stab me deeper.”
“Jaramana was the only safe and possible place at that time. But I never imagined I would stay there for a month and a half, unable to return to the house where my husband and sons were buried. Every night I woke up terrified, seeing them being killed again; screaming that I wanted to go to them, to kiss and smell the earth that now held them in my place.
I know they were waiting for me too. I never imagined I wouldn’t be there for their funeral, when all the relatives and friends came to our house. I wanted to hear people speak about them, to hear everyone who knew them cry over their loss, those pure, innocent young men.
I wanted to send them off as grooms, beautiful and alive. Bashar al-Assad deprived me of them for seven years, and al-Jolani’s government murdered them. Now I only wish to sleep beside them forever.”
