Gunfire is reported to have stopped in southern Syria after days of sectarian violence which has led to more than a thousand deaths. Most of the clashes took place in Sweida City between Bedouin and Sunni tribal fighters on one side and Druze militias on the other.

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.

DAMASCUS, July 20 (Reuters) - Residents reported calm in Syria's Sweida on Sunday after the Islamist-led government announced that Bedouin fighters had withdrawn from the predominantly Druze city and the United States stepped up calls for an end to days of fighting.

Once again, images of horrifying violence are pouring out of Syria: dead bodies piled up in a hospital corridor. Gunmen calling out insults as they drive their cars over the corpses of murdered civilians.

Violence between government forces and armed factions of a religious minority in southern Syria this week has deepened divisions in a country still recuperating from a civil war

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.

Calm returned to southern Syria's Sweida province on Sunday, a monitor and AFP correspondents reported, after a week of sectarian violence between Druze fighters and rival groups that killed more than 1,

One day after reaching a ceasefire with Israel, Syrian military forces began moving into the country's Suwayda Governorate, where dozens of people have been killed in recent days amid fighting between warring tribes.