(Reuters) -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.

Syrian government officials and leaders in the Druze religious minority announced a renewed ceasefire Wednesday after days of clashes that have threatened to unravel the country's postwar political transition and drawn military intervention by powerful neighbor Israel.

Syrian government officials and leaders in the Druze religious minority announced a renewed ceasefire Wednesday after days of clashes that have threatened to unravel the country's postwar political transition and drawn military intervention by powerful neighbor Israel.

In Syria's Druze-majority city of Sweida, residents said they have been living in terror since the arrival of government forces who have been carrying out what witnesses and a war monitor have called summary executions.

The Syrian government deployed its forces in the Druze-majority city of Sweida, in a bid by the Islamist authorities to extend their power to the area controlled by local armed groups.

The Syrian government announced Thursday that local leaders would assume control over security in the city of Sweida in an attempt to end violence that has claimed hundreds of lives

Syria announced that its army had begun to withdraw from violence-hit Sweida on Wednesday, following a wave of Israeli strikes on the capital and a US call for government forces to leave the majority-Druze southern city.

Israeli officials react to the ongoing violence in Syria's Sweida between regime forces and the local Druze community.