The Druze religious sect, enmeshed in an outbreak of tit-for-tat violence in Syria, began roughly 1,000 years ago as an offshoot of Ismailism, a branch of Shiite Islam.

Druze fighters had pushed out rival armed factions from the city on Saturday, a monitor said, after the government ordered a ceasefire following a US-brokered deal to avert further Israeli military intervention.

Syria's Druze are concentrated in the southwest in the Sweida region bordering Jordan and in areas of Quneitra province, near the occupied Golan. They also reside in the Damascus

Members of Syria's Druze community are searching for loved ones and counting their dead after days of clashes in a southern province that left bloodied bodies of civilians on the streets and homes looted.

Hundreds of Druze from Israel pushed across the border in solidarity with their Syrian cousins they feared were under attack. Many then met relatives they had never seen before.

Syrian government forces had largely pulled out of the Druze-majority southern province of Sweida after days of clashes with militias linked to the Druze religious minority that threatened to unravel the country’s fragile post-war transition.

At the center of a crisis in Syria are the Druze — a secretive religious minority that long carved out a precarious identity across Syria, Lebanon and Israel.

Syria should not be allowed back into the international community unless it is able to uphold protections for the Druze and its other minority groups, Israel has said.

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.