One elderly man had been shot in the head in his living room. Another in his bedroom. The body of a woman lay in the street. After days of bloodshed in Syria's Druze city of Sweida, survivors emerged on Thursday to collect and bury the scores of dead found across the city.

Syrian government forces have started withdrawing from the southern province of Sweida following days of vicious clashes with militias from the Druze minority.

As tensions between Syria’s Druze and Bedouin fighters escalate, Israel conducted its first airstrike in the Syrian city of Sweida after the withdrawal of Syrian government forces from the province

Sharply escalating tensions in Syria appeared to ease on Thursday following a new ceasefire, a day after Israel bombed Damascus and threatened further attacks under the pretext of "protecting the Druze" amid sectarian clashes in the southern province of Sweida.

Clashes that shook southern Syria this week have killed hundreds of people, including civilians, and drawn in an array of both local and international players, harking back to the dynamics of the country's nearly 14-year civil war.

About 500 people killed in clashes, according to UK war monitor; AFP photographer counts 15 bodies strewn in city center amid looted shops and burned cars and houses

More than 500 people have been killed in the sectarian violence that has consumed the southern province of Sweida in Syria since Sunday, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. The recent violence was one of the deadliest bouts of unrest in Syria since the collapse of the Assad regime.

Syria's Druze have reached a ceasefire agreement with the Syrian government in Sweida that will take immediate effect, Druze religious leader Sheikh Yousef Jarbou said in a video broadcast by state media on Wednesday.

Residents emerged from their homes to scenes of devastation on Thursday after government forces withdrew from the Syrian Druze-majority city of Sweida, leaving behind looted shops, burned homes and

The fighting had threatened to unravel Syria's post-war political transition and brought further military intervention by neighbouring Israel. View on euronews

After five days of hunkering down at his home in the southern city of Sweida, 33-year-old Hossam emerged on Thursday and drove around to survey the damage. Wherever he went, the smell of death lingered.