Syrian leader Ahmed al-Sharaa accused Israel of trying to fracture Syria and promised to protect its Druze minority on Thursday after U.S. intervention to help achieve a truce in fighting between government forces and Druze fighters.

Ramzi has witnessed horrors throughout his career as a doctor during Syria’s 13-year civil war. But few compare, he said, to the scenes he witnessed this week at the main hospital in Sweida, a Druze-majority town where bloody sectarian violence raged for days.

Syrian troops pulled out of the Druze heartland province of Sweida Thursday on orders from the Islamist-led government, leaving bodies strewn on the street, AFP journalists reported from the provincia

Syria announced that its army had begun to withdraw from violence-hit Sweida on Wednesday, following a wave of Israeli strikes on the capital and a US call for government forces to leave the majority-Druze southern city.

At least 203 people have been killed in sectarian fighting involving Sunni tribes, Druze militias and Syrian troops in the predominantly Druze city of Sweida since Sunday, a war monitor said

SANA says women and children among those killed by armed groups following withdrawal of government forces in Sweida

Israel bombed the Syrian army headquarters in Damascus on Wednesday after warning the Islamist-led government to leave the Druze minority alone in its Sweida heartland, where a war monitor says sectarian clashes have killed nearly 250 people.