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Nearly 718 people have been killed in Syria’s Sweida province after a week of brutal clashes between Druze and Bedouin groups, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. The dead include civilians, Druze fighters and government forces, with some allegedly executed.

At least 718 people have died in Sweida province during nearly a week of violence in the heartland of Syria’s Druze minority, a war monitor said on Saturday.

 

Updating its toll, the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that at least 146 Druze fighters and 245 civilians were among the dead since Sunday. Of those killed, 165 “were summarily executed by personnel of the defence and interior ministries,” the Observatory said.

 

The clashes have also claimed the lives of 287 government troops and 18 Bedouin fighters, along with three Bedouin “summarily executed by Druze fighters,” it added. Fifteen government soldiers were also killed in Israeli airstrikes.

The rising toll comes as the United States announced early on Saturday that it had brokered a ceasefire between Israel and Syria’s interim government after a week of deadly unrest in the Druze-majority south.

The truce follows days of fierce street battles, artillery shelling and targeted abductions between Druze and Bedouin communities in Sweida province. Monitoring groups and UN agencies say the violence has displaced nearly 80,000 people and overwhelmed local hospitals.

US special envoy Tom Barrack, who currently serves as ambassador to Turkey, said that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Syrian interim leader Ahmed al-Sharaa had agreed to the US-negotiated ceasefire following days of behind-the-scenes diplomacy.

The deal, Barrack said, has been jointly backed by Turkey and Jordan. “We call upon Druze, Bedouins and Sunnis to put down their weapons and, together with other minorities, build a new and united Syrian identity in peace and prosperity with its neighbours,” Barrack said in a statement posted on X.

Previously, on Wednesday, the US had announced an earlier agreement under which the Sharaa government withdrew forces from Sweida, according to different US media houses.