WASHINGTON, July 19. /TASS/. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Syria’s interim president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, have agreed to introduce a ceasefire with support from Washington, according to US Special Envoy for Syria Tom Barrack.

"Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa supported by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio have agreed to a ceasefire embraced by Turkey, Jordan and its neighbors," Barrack wrote on his page on X.

The US emissary also called on Druze, Bedouins, and Sunnis to put down their weapons and, jointly with other minorities, "build a new and united Syrian identity in peace and prosperity with its neighbors."

The situation in southern Syria escalated on July 13, when clashes broke out in Al-Suwayda between Arab tribal militias and Druze self-defense units. On July 15, the Syrian army entered the administrative center of the region of the same name and began cleansing. Shortly after, Israel began attacking military convoys of the Syrian army, explaining this as a desire to protect the Druze population of the province, and on July 16 it attacked several strategic facilities in Damascus.

The Druze are a tight-knit ethnoreligious Arabic-speaking group living mainly in Syria, Lebanon, Israel, and Jordan who adhere to a specific faith that split from Shiite Islam in the Middle Ages. There are 700,000 Druze in Syria, making the minority the Arab republic’s third-largest after Kurds and Alawites.