Israel and Syria agree ceasefire as Israel allows Syrian troops limited access to Sweida

Israel and Syria person agreed to a ceasefire, the U.S. envoy to Turkey said connected Friday, aft days of bloodshed in the predominantly Druze country that has killed implicit 300 people.

On Wednesday, Israel launched airstrikes successful Damascus and deed authorities forces successful the south, demanding they retreat and saying that Israel aimed to support Syrian Druze - portion of a tiny but influential number that besides has members successful Lebanon and Israel.

"We telephone upon Druze, Bedouins, and Sunnis to enactment down their weapons and unneurotic with different minorities physique a caller and agreed Syrian identity," Tom Barrack, the U.S. ambassador to Turkey, said successful a station connected X.

Barrack said that Israel and Syria agreed to the ceasefire supported by Turkey, Jordan and neighbors.

The Israeli embassy successful Washington and Syrian consulate successful Canada did not instantly respond to requests for comment.

Syria's Sweida state has been engulfed by astir a week of unit triggered by clashes betwixt Bedouin fighters and Druze factions.

Earlier connected Friday, an Israeli authoritative said Israel agreed to let Syrian forces constricted entree to the Sweida country of southern Syria for the adjacent 2 days.

The Syrian presidency said precocious connected Friday that authorities would deploy a unit successful the southbound dedicated to ending the clashes, successful coordination with governmental and information measures to reconstruct stableness and forestall the instrumentality of violence.

Damascus earlier this week dispatched authorities troops to quell the fighting, but they were accused of carrying retired wide violations against the Druze and were deed by Israeli strikes earlier withdrawing nether a truce agreed connected Wednesday.

Israel had repeatedly said it would not let Syrian troops to deploy to the country's south, but connected Friday it said it would assistance them a little model to extremity renewed clashes there.

"In airy of the ongoing instability successful southwest Syria, Israel has agreed to let constricted introduction of the (Syrian) interior information forces into Sweida territory for the adjacent 48 hours," the official, who declined to beryllium named, told reporters.

Describing Syria's caller rulers arsenic hardly disguised jihadists, Israel has vowed to shield the area's Druze assemblage from attack, encouraged by calls from Israel's ain Druze minority.

It carried retired much strikes connected Sweida successful the aboriginal hours of Friday.

The U.S. intervened to assistance unafraid the earlier truce betwixt authorities forces and Druze fighters, and the White House said connected Thursday that it appeared to beryllium holding.

Syrian person Ahmed al-Sharaa, who has worked to found warmer ties with the U.S., accused Israel of trying to fracture Syria and promised to support its Druze minority.

Reuters reporters saw a convoy of units from Syria's interior ministry stopped connected a roadworthy successful Daraa province, which lies straight eastbound of Sweida. A information root told Reuters that forces were awaiting a last greenish airy to participate Sweida.

But thousands of Bedouin fighters were inactive streaming into Sweida connected Friday, the Reuters reporters said, prompting fears among residents that unit would proceed unabated.

The Syrian Network for Human Rights said it had documented 321 deaths successful warring since Sunday, among them aesculapian personnel, women and children. It said they included tract executions by each sides.

Syria's curate for emergencies said much than 500 wounded had been treated and hundreds of families had been evacuated retired of the city.

Clashes continued successful the northbound and westbound of Sweida province, according to residents and Ryan Marouf, the caput of section quality outlet Sweida24.

Residents said they had small nutrient and water, and that energy had been chopped to the metropolis for respective days.

"For 4 days, determination has been nary electricity, nary fuel, nary food, nary drink, thing astatine all," said Mudar, a 28-year-old nonmigratory of Sweida who asked to beryllium identified lone by his archetypal sanction retired of fearfulness of reprisals.

"The clashes haven't stopped," helium said, adding that "we can't get quality easy due to the fact that there's hardly net oregon telephone coverage."

The caput of the U.N. quality rights bureau urged Syria's interim authorities to guarantee accountability for what it said are credible reports of wide rights violations during the fighting, including summary executions and kidnappings, the bureau said successful a statement.

At slightest 13 radical were unlawfully killed successful 1 recorded incidental connected Tuesday erstwhile affiliates of the interim authorities opened occurrence astatine a household gathering, the OHCHR said. Six men were summarily executed adjacent their homes the aforesaid day.

The UN exile bureau connected Friday urged each sides to allow humanitarian access, which it said had been curtailed by the violence.

Israel's heavy distrust of Syria's caller Islamist-led enactment appears to beryllium astatine likelihood with the United States, which said it did not support the caller Israeli strikes connected Syria.