Syrian security forces are deploying in the restive province of Suwayda after days of communal fighting in which hundreds of people have been killed, the country’s interior ministry says.

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.

Suwayda, the Druze community is facing what its members have described as an "ethnic cleansing campaign" amidst a rapidly deteriorating security situation that has claimed the lives of hundreds over the past week.

Ahmed al-Sharaa spoke after Israel said it would destroy government forces it accused of attacking Druze in Syria.

The conflict drew airstrikes against Syrian forces by neighboring Israel in defense of the Druze minority before most of the fighting was halted by a truce announced Wednesday.

The attack follows a wave of Israeli strikes on Syrian government forces during two days of sectarian clashes between local Druze and Bedouin populations.

Sectarian violence erupted again in southern Syria as local Sunni Bedouin tribes fought armed factions for the Druze religious community. The Syrian government dispatched troops to restore order, and Israel launched airstrikes to protect the Druze.

One day after reaching a ceasefire with Israel, Syrian military forces began moving into the country's Suwayda Governorate, where dozens of people have been killed in recent days amid fighting between warring tribes.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a U.K.-based war monitor, said the clashes started after members of a Bedouin tribe in Sweida province set up a checkpoint where they attacked and robbed a Druze man, leading to tit-for-tat attacks and kidnappings between the tribes and Druze armed groups.

Violence between government forces and armed factions of a religious minority in southern Syria this week has deepened divisions in a country still recuperating from a civil war

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, survivors emerged on Thursday to collect and bury the scores of dead found across the city.