U.S. envoy to Syria Tom Barrack says that Israel and Syria have agreed to a ceasefire following Israel’s intervention this week in fighting between Syrian government forces and .

Syria should not be allowed back into the international community unless it is able to uphold protections for the Druze and its other minority groups, Israel has said.

"Now is the time for the Syrian government to turn their words into real actions if they want to maintain legitimacy: restore order, protect all of its citizens," Hamadeh says

Syria has been wracked by a new wave of deadly sectarian violence that has placed the spotlight on the Druze minority at the center of rising tensions with Israel. Dozens of people were killed this week after clashes between government loyalists and Druze militias in the southern city of Suwayda,

Members of Syria's Druze community are searching for loved ones and counting their dead after days of clashes in a southern province that left bloodied bodies of civilians on the streets and homes loo

Violence in Syria's Druze province has triggered Israeli military action, complicating relations with Turkey and creating a power vacuum that Iran could exploit.

Israeli leaders said they launched attacks on Syria this week to protect members of the Druze religious group in the country’s south, amid clashes in the area.

Syrian government forces had largely pulled out of the Druze-majority southern province of Sweida after days of clashes with militias linked to the Druze religious minority that threatened to unravel the country’s fragile post-war transition.

Syria's Islamist-led government said its security forces were deploying in the predominantly Druze southern city of Sweida on Saturday and urged all parties to respect a ceasefire after days of factional bloodshed that has left hundreds dead.

Hundreds of Druze from Israel pushed across the border in solidarity with their Syrian cousins they feared were under attack. Many then met relatives they had never seen before.

The Druze religious sect, enmeshed in an outbreak of tit-for-tat violence in Syria, began roughly 1,000 years ago as an offshoot of Ismailism, a branch of Shiite Islam.