Syria's army began withdrawing from violence-hit Sweida on Wednesday after Israeli strikes on Damascus and US calls for a pullback from the Druze-majority city, state media said. Washington, which seeks to mend ties with Syria,

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a U.K.-based war monitor, said the clashes started after members of a Bedouin tribe in Sweida province set up a checkpoint where they attacked and robbed a Druze man, leading to tit-for-tat attacks and kidnappings between the tribes and Druze armed groups.

Convoys of Syrian security forces were seen moving outside of Sweida on Wednesday (July 16) night. Scores of people have been killed this week in violence in and around the predominantly Druze city, pitting fighters from the Druze minority against government security forces and members of Bedouin tribes.

And Israeli-backed American organization in Gaza says 20 Palestinians died in a stampede at a food distribution center.

Israeli officials react to the ongoing violence in Syria's Sweida between regime forces and the local Druze community. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urged Israeli Druze citizens not to cross the border amid ongoing clashes in Sweida in southern Syria on Wednesday afternoon.

As of Wednesday afternoon, the IDF had undertaken 160 aerial attacks on Syrian regime forces in and around the vicinity of Sweida in southern Syria, where Israel says the regime's forces are slaughtering Syrian-Druze.

(Reuters) -Israeli drones targeted Syria's city of Sweida, where clashes between Syrian government troops and local Druze fighters have resumed, Syrian state news agency said on Wednesday. There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military.

Israel struck Syria’s military headquarters in Damascus on Wednesday and moved more troops to the border area in a bid, officials said, to prevent attacks against the Syrian Druze community.