Syria's interim government said sectarian clashes in the Druze province of Sweida were "halted" on Sunday as security forces redeployed to the southern region and tribal forces that had converged on Sweida withdrew.

Israel launched rare strikes in Damascus on Wednesday in a campaign it said was aimed at defending the Druze community after days of clashes in the southern city of Sweida.

Syria's armed Bedouin clans on Sunday announced that they had withdrawn from the Druze-majority city of Sweida following over a week of clashes and a U.S.-brokered ceasefire, as humanitarian aid convoys started to enter the battered southern city.

Syria's defense minister has announced a ceasefire just hours after government forces entered a key city in the volatile Sweida province.

Calm returned to southern Syria's Sweida province on Sunday, a monitor and AFP correspondents reported, after a week of sectarian violence between Druze fighters and rival groups that killed more than 1,

The Syrian government says clashes in the southern city of Suwayda have stopped after a week of violence left hundreds of people dead, drawing Israeli intervention and US condemnation.

Violence between government forces and armed factions of a religious minority in southern Syria has deepened divisions in a country still recuperating from a civil war.