Syria and Israel have agreed to a ceasefire, US ambassador to Turkiye, Tom Barrack, has announced, drawing an uneasy truce between the neighbours after days of air strikes and sectarian bloodshed in Syria’s southwestern Suwayda region.

Syria's defense minister has announced a ceasefire just hours after government forces entered a key city in the volatile Sweida province.

US envoy Tom Barrack announces a ceasefire between Israel and Syria after deadly sectarian violence in Sweida. Nearly 80,000 displaced, as the humanitarian crisis deepens and tensions persist.

Israel launched rare strikes in Damascus on Wednesday in a campaign it said was aimed at defending the Druze community after days of clashes in the southern city of Sweida.

Clashes between Bedouin tribes, government forces and members of a minority sect in Syria have left dozens dead and once again raised fears of a breakdown in the country's fragile postwar order. The country is deeply divided as it tries to emerge from decades of dictatorship and nearly 14 years of civil war.

Several days of bitter sectarian fighting in the south of Syria has brought the fledgling government in Damascus dangerously close to direct conflict with Israel, after Israeli warplanes launched strikes against government buildings in the Syrian capital, Damascus, on July 16.

At least 18 members of Syria's security forces have been killed in the predominantly Druze city of Sweida, the Defence Ministry said, after they deployed to quell deadly sectarian clashes that had resumed on Monday,

The sectarian violence between Bedouin groups and militias from the Druse religious minority killed more than 50 people, according to a local health official and a monitoring group.