Syria and Israel have agreed to a ceasefire, US ambassador to Turkiye, Tom Barrack, has announced, drawing an uneasy truce between the neighbours after days of air strikes and sectarian bloodshed in Syria’s southwestern Suwayda region.

Several days of bitter sectarian fighting in the south of Syria has brought the fledgling government in Damascus dangerously close to direct conflict with Israel, after Israeli warplanes launched strikes against government buildings in the Syrian capital, Damascus, on July 16.

Clashes between Bedouin tribes, government forces and members of a minority sect in Syria have left dozens dead and once again raised fears of a breakdown in the country's fragile postwar order. The country is deeply divided as it tries to emerge from decades of dictatorship and nearly 14 years of civil war.