Syrian presidency says ceasefire in place, urges parties to respect it

(Reuters/ AFP): Syria’s interim government said its security forces were deploying in the predominantly-Druze southern city of Sweida on Saturday and urged all parties to respect a ceasefire, after days of factional bloodshed that has left hundreds dead.

Interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa, in a separate speech, said that “Arab and American” mediation had helped bring calm, and criticised Israel for airstrikes against Syrian government forces in the south and Damascus during the week.

Sweida province has been engulfed by nearly a week of violence, which began with clashes between Bedouin fighters and Druze factions, before Damascus sent in government security forces.

Israel has carried out airstrikes in southern Syria and on the defence ministry in Damascus, saying it is protecting the Druze minority, of whom there are a significant number in Israel and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

In a statement on Saturday, the Syrian presidency announced an immediate and comprehensive ceasefire and urged all parties to end hostilities immediately.

The interior ministry said internal security forces had begun deploying in Sweida.

The death toll from violence in Sweida province, heartland of Syria’s Druze minority, has risen to 940 since last weekend, a war monitor said, despite the announcement of a ceasefire.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that the dead included 326 Druze fighters and 262 Druze civilians, 182 of whom were “summarily executed by defence and interior ministry personnel”.

They also included 312 government security personnel and 21 Sunni Bedouin, three of them civilians who were “summarily executed by Druze fighters”.

Another 15 government troops were killed in Israeli strikes, the observatory said.

Sharaa called for calm and said Syria would not be a “testing ground for partition, secession, or sectarian incitement”.

“The Israeli intervention pushed the country into a dangerous phase that threatened its stability,” he said in a televised speech.

US envoy Tom Barrack announced on Friday that Syria and Israel had agreed to a ceasefire supported by Turkiye, Jordan and neighbours.

Barrack, who is both US ambassador to Turkiye and Washington’s Syria envoy, urged Druze, Bedouins and Sunnis to put down their weapons “and, together with other minorities, build a new and united Syrian identity”.

Israel has attacked Syrian military facilities and weaponry in the seven months since Sharaa’s forces toppled President Bashar al-Assad, and says it wants areas of southern Syria near its border to remain demilitarised.

On Friday, an Israeli official said Israel had agreed to allow Syrian forces limited access to the Sweida area for the next two days.