The State Department condemned recent Israeli strikes in Syria, and Secretary Marco Rubio announced a U.S.-brokered agreement between Israel and Syria to end immediate violence.

Despite reports indicating the strike was carried out by Israel, Channel 12 reported that the Israeli military had not conducted the strikes. Israel carried out an airstrike in the vicinity of Syria's Sweida,

"If Israel feels that a certain leader...is an evident threat to its national security, it will operate," a former Israeli envoy told Newsweek.

Syria's interim president accused Israel on Thursday of "trying to drag us into war" after the Netanyahu government launched airstrikes in Damascus.

In Syria, violence continued between rival factions even after a ceasefire deal. Government troops withdrew overnight from a region as Israel said it would not allow Syrian forces south of Damascus, extending its attempted control of the area.

A Syrian Druze woman living in the United Arab Emirates frantically tried to keep in touch with her family in her hometown in southern Syria as clashes raged there over the

Syrian troops are trying to intervene in sectarian violence in the south between the Druze minority and Bedouins. Israel said its strikes were to protect the Druze.

Syrian government forces largely pulled out of the southern province of Sweida on Thursday after days of clashes with militias linked to the Druze minority that threatened to unravel the country's post-war transition and brought in more Israeli airstrikes in defense of the Druze.