The Syrian government withdrew its forces from Druze-dominated areas in the south on Wednesday after several days of heavy fighting, declaring a ceasefire in the process.

Syrian President Ahmed Al-Sharaa spoke to the nation for the first time since Israel began launching heavy airstrikes against regime targets. His speech saw a marked turnaround in rhetoric, which had previously avoided the harsh denunciations of Israel used by the previous government. Al-Sharaa accused Israel of trying to “dismantle the unity of our people,” arguing it had “consistently targeted our stability and created discord among us since the fall of the former regime.”

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He referred to the Druze as an integral part of Syria, and pledged to hold those accountable who had committed atrocities against them.

“We affirm that protecting your rights and freedoms is among our top priorities,” al-Sharaa said. “We reject any attempt, foreign or domestic, to sow division within our ranks.”

He said Syria was faced with two options: “either confront Israel or reform our internal front.”

“We are not among those who fear the war. We have spent our lives facing challenges and defending our people, but we have put the interests of the Syrians before chaos and destruction,” al-Sharaa said.

He credited the United States, the Gulf States, and Turkey for mediating a ceasefire. The Syrian president then attempted to spin the Syrian withdrawal as planned, saying, “We are assigning local factions and tribal leaders the responsibility of maintaining security in Suwayda … based on the supreme national interest.”

Damascus’s retreat from Suwayda came after days of intense fighting saw rebellious Druze forces under the Suwayda Military Council ambush and repel an intervening government force after it entered the city to exert control over feuding Druze and Bedouin militias. The intervention by the government over the Druze-dominated south, which had been under the de facto control of the SMC since the fall of the Assad regime, triggered an Israeli intervention.

Buoyed by calls of outraged Israeli Druze over massacres and other atrocities perpetrated by government forces, Israel launched a major air campaign, targeting Syrian military vehicles and logistics in support of the Druze. On Wednesday, strikes expanded to hit Damascus itself, destroying the Ministry of Defense headquarters and hitting al-Sharaa’s Presidential Palace.

Multiple ceasefires were agreed upon by Damascus and local Druze leaders, but were repeatedly rejected by the SMC, led by Hikmat al-Hijri. For his part, Hijri said he rejected any ceasefire until Suwayda was “entirely liberated.”

The most recent ceasefire has a higher likelihood of holding due to government forces withdrawing completely, but clashes between local Druze and Bedouin militias could risk another intervention. Some open-source intelligence channels reported a local mobilization of Bedouin militias to continue fighting.

Another major impediment to a lasting ceasefire is the outpouring of reports of mutual atrocities — pro-government sources accuse the Druze of massacring Bedouin civilians, while the Druze accuse government forces of committing massacres and other atrocities against them.

Pictures and videos of purported atrocities flooded social media, with conflicting claims as to the perpetrators. In one video, dozens of corpses of executed people in a hospital could be seen.

Israel defended its actions to assist the Druze. The Israel Defense Forces said military actions against Damascus would continue if its troops traveled back south.

“We are acting decisively to prevent the entrenchment of hostile elements beyond the border, to protect the citizens of the State of Israel, and to prevent the harming of Druze civilians,” IDF chief of staff, Lt Gen Eyal Zamir, said Thursday.

“We will not allow southern Syria to become a terror stronghold,” he added.

Fighting appeared to have largely ceased as of Thursday morning. Al Jazeera’s Zeina Khodr said a “tense calm” had settled over Suwayda, but whether that would hold was uncertain.

The heavy fighting over multiple days claimed hundreds of lives. A local journalist told the outlet that he’d counted over 60 corpses on the streets of Suwayda, while Ryan Marouf of the local Suwayda24 told Reuters he found the bodies of a family of 12 in a single house.

While the Druze and government forces accused each other of atrocities, most of those documented by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights were committed by the government. Of the 374 confirmed deaths, 27 were executed by the government. The government bore the brunt of the casualties, with 189 killed in clashes and another 15 killed in Israeli airstrikes.

The true totals are certainly much higher, with casualty counts ongoing.

The Druze have a significant community in Israel, 150,000 out of 1 million globally, noted for their strong and close relationship with the Jewish state. Over half of the world’s Druze live in Syria, concentrated in the south. Jerusalem views the Druze in many ways as a model minority, taking the opposite approach of the Palestinians by choosing to cooperate and integrate itself with Israel.

Following the outbreak of hostilities, thousands of Druze in Lebanon and Israel began protesting in solidarity with the Druze in southern Syria, with those in Israel demanding Jerusalem step in. Hundreds of Israeli Druze mobbed the Israeli-Syrian border, breaking through the border fence and heading over to assist their fellow Druze. More protests at the border continued into Thursday, with continued calls for Jerusalem to intervene.

ISRAEL PUMMELS DAMASCUS AS SECTARIAN FIGHTING ESCALATES IN COUNTRY’S SOUTH

The fighting put the U.S. in an awkward position, with President Donald Trump pursuing a path of normalization with the embattled Syria, lifting all sanctions against the country. Just days prior to the clash in the south, Tom Barrack, the U.S. special envoy for Syria, compared al-Sharaa to George Washington. He told the New York Times earlier this month that the U.S. was facilitating normalization talks between Syria and Israel, intending to have Damascus join the Abraham Accords.

Al-Sharaa’s rhetoric toward Israel on Thursday indicated that normalization talks were dead in the water.