Syria's defense minister has announced a ceasefire just hours after government forces entered a key city in the volatile Sweida province.

Sectarian violence erupted again in southern Syria as local Sunni Bedouin tribes fought armed factions for the Druze religious community. The Syrian government dispatched troops to restore order, and Israel launched airstrikes to protect the Druze.

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.

Israel says it is intervening to protect Syria’s Druze residents who have strong ties to Israel’s Druze community. Damascus called the attack a violation of sovereignty.

The violence underscores the government’s challenge to assert nationwide control as ethnic and religious tensions simmer after the end of the civil war.

(Reuters) -Clashes between Syrian government troops and local Druze fighters resumed in the southern Druze city of Sweida early on Wednesday, just hours after a ceasefire was announced. Local news outlet Sweida24 said the city and nearby villages were coming under heavy artillery and mortar fire early 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.