As violence broke out last week between two ethnic groups in southern Syria, both the Israeli and Syrian governments intervened.

An American citizen from Oklahoma was among eight men, all family members, rounded up and killed during the sectarian violence that flared in Syria last week.

When the Syrian civil war erupted in March 2011, Syrian Druze were targeted at times by both the Assad regime, which pressured them to support it, and by Islamist rebel groups that regarded them as infidels. The Druze straddled a fine line throughout the war, seeking, not always successfully, to be left on their own.

Dr Talat Amer, a surgeon at Sweida National Hospital in southern Syria, worked tirelessly for three days as bombs fell and the building came under siege from government and militia forces.

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.

The clashes between militias of the Druze religious minority and Sunni Muslim groups killed hundreds and threatened to unravel Syria's fragile postwar transition.

DAMASCUS, Syria — Renewed clashes broke out overnight between Druze armed groups and members of Bedouin clans in southern Syria, and government forces were preparing to deploy again to the area Friday after pulling out under a ceasefire agreement that halted several days of violence earlier this week, officials said.

Hundreds of Bedouin civilians were evacuated from Syria's predominantly Druze city of Sweida on Monday as part of a U.S.-backed truce meant to end days of bloodshed in southern Syria, state media and witnesses said.