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

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

BEIRUT (Reuters) -One elderly man had been shot in the head in his living room. Another in his bedroom. The body of a woman lay in the street. After days of bloodshed in Syria's Druze city of Sweida,

Clashes that shook southern Syria this week killed hundreds of people, including civilians, and drew in an array of local and international players, harking back to the dynamics of the country's yearslong civil war.

Syria's Druze have reached a ceasefire agreement with the Syrian government in Sweida that will take immediate effect, Druze religious leader Sheikh Yousef Jarbou said in a video broadcast by state media on Wednesday.

The Syrian government withdrew its forces from Druze-dominated areas in the south on Wednesday after several days of heavy fighting, declaring a ceasefire in the process. Syrian President Ahmed Al-Sharaa spoke to the nation for the first time since Israel began launching heavy airstrikes against regime targets.

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.

Syria's Druze are concentrated in the southwest in the Sweida region bordering Jordan and in areas of Quneitra province, near the occupied Golan. They also reside in the Damascus

Syria’s military entered a stronghold for the Druze community in the country’s south on Tuesday, the government said, reigniting fears of attacks against minorities and triggering renewed Israeli strikes on the forces dispatched by Damascus.