Syrian officials and Druze leaders have announced a new ceasefire after days of violent clashes, but Israel has continued its airstrikes after intervening.

Israeli military responds to protect Syrian Druze from Islamist militants as local Druze citizens cross the border to aid their brethren, prompting concerns from Israeli officials.

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.

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.

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.

DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) — Clashes raged in the southern Syrian city of Sweida on Wednesday after a ceasefire between government forces and Druze armed groups collapsed and Israel threatened to escalate its involvement in support of the Druze religious minority.

"Silence and standing idly by are no longer an option,” Druze leader Sheikh Mowafak Tarif wrote. Israel's Druze spiritual leadership called on its community to prepare to assist their Syrian counterparts “by all means necessary,

In Syria's Druze-majority city of Sweida, residents said they have been living in terror since the arrival of government forces who have been carrying out what witnesses and a war monitor have