The Syrian government announced a cease-fire deal on Saturday and said it would redeploy its forces to the restive southern province of Sweida in a new effort to quell a deadly wave of sectarian violence that drew in neighboring Israel.
“The Syrian state has managed to calm the situation despite difficult circumstances,” President Ahmed al-Shara said in a televised address on Saturday, describing the recent bloodshed as a “dangerous turning point” for his nation.
“The Israeli intervention has pushed the country into a dangerous phase that poses a threat to its stability,” he added.
Hours earlier, the U.S. special envoy to Syria, Thomas J. Barrack Jr., said that Israel and Syria had agreed to a truce that he described as a “breakthrough.” Mr. Barrack called on Syrian armed groups — including Bedouin fighters and minority Druse at the center of the recent clashes — to lay down their weapons.
It was not immediately clear how the new truce differed from a cease-fire in Sweida that the Syrian authorities announced Wednesday. That day, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that Washington had worked with all parties involved and had “agreed on specific steps that will bring this troubling and horrifying situation to an end tonight.”
Soon after those comments, the Syrian state news agency, SANA, reported that government forces had begun withdrawing from Sweida. That appeared to end the worst of the violence, though clashes have since continued sporadically in some areas.
The announcement by the Syrian government on Saturday appeared to be a broader deal that allowed for a redeployment of troops to the south.
Israel, which has close relations with its own Druse minority, intervened in the clashes in Sweida this past week, pledging to protect the Druse, who largely control the province. Israel has also made clear that it intends to prevent any hostile forces from entrenching in southern Syria near its territory.
And even though Israel has opened diplomatic contacts with Mr. al-Shara aimed at calming border tensions, officials remain wary of his Islamist roots and past ties to Al Qaeda.
Israeli fighter jets have struck Syrian government troops with lethal force over days of attacks. On Wednesday, before the cease-fire was announced, Israel bombed the Defense Ministry in Damascus, warning the Syrian government to withdraw its forces from the southern Druse heartland.
The redeployment of Syrian government forces to Sweida, along with Mr. Barrack’s statement on Israel’s having agreed to the truce, suggested that an understanding may have been reached to allow those forces to operate without fear of more Israeli airstrikes.
The Israeli military and the Israeli prime minister’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Saturday.
More than 700 people were killed in the violence that erupted on Sunday in Sweida, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor.
The Druse, who make up about 3 percent of Syria’s population, have found themselves at the center of the latest wave of sectarian violence to hit Syria since rebels led by Mr. al-Shara toppled the dictator Bashar al-Assad in December.
The clashes began after armed members of a Bedouin tribe attacked and robbed a Druse man, setting off an exchange of kidnappings, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. The unrest soon drew in government forces and the Israeli military.
Mr. al-Shara said in his address on Saturday that after government forces withdrew from Sweida, local fighters from the Druse-majority region began “revenge attacks” against Bedouin communities. Those reprisals prompted other, largely Sunni Muslim tribal groups from across Syria to begin converging on Sweida, he said.
Mr. al-Shara has promised to protect the country’s diverse religious and ethnic minorities. But those promises have been repeatedly tested by waves of sectarian unrest.
In Idlib, a former rebel bastion in the northwest that Mr. al-Shara once led, tribal fighters massed in large convoys on Friday along a main highway heading south, vowing to retaliate against what they called Druse aggression.
“We are going to support our Bedouin brothers in Sweida,” said Hussein Mekdash, a 40-year-old farmer, raising his rifle in the air.
“We are not going for revenge, and we do not want to speak in sectarian terms. But in short, they are traitors and Israel supported them,” he said, referring to the Druse.
Syria’s Druse find themselves increasingly isolated.
In recent months, Israel has effectively established a security zone in Sweida, declaring it a demilitarized area off-limits to Syrian forces and enforcing that with a bombing campaign.
While some Druse have welcomed Israeli protection, others now feel alienated from Syria’s fledgling post-Assad government and are burdened by accusations of collaboration.
Hikmat al-Hijri, an influential Druse spiritual leader in Syria and critic of the new government in Damascus, has called in recent days for Israeli intervention in support of the Druse, prompting uproar among many Syrians.
But other Druse leaders have condemned the Israeli intervention.
Mr. al-Shara moved to dampen sectarian tensions in his comments on Saturday.
“The Druse community is a fundamental pillar of the Syrian national fabric,” he said.
Muhammad Haj Kadour contributed reporting from Idlib, Syria, and Dayana Iwaza from Beirut, Lebanon.
Euan Ward is a Times reporter covering Lebanon and Syria. He is based in Beirut.
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