Khalidi and Maya Gebeily DAMASCUS/BEIRUT (Reuters) -Syria's government misread how Israel would respond to its troops deploying to the country's south this week, encouraged by U.S. messaging that Syria should be governed as a centralized state,

The conflict drew airstrikes against Syrian forces by neighboring Israel in defense of the Druze minority before most of the fighting was halted by a truce announced Wednesday.

Armed tribes supported by Syria’s government clashed with Druze fighters outside Sweida on Friday a day after government troops withdrew from

Israel has agreed to allow limited access by Syrian forces into the Sweida area of southern Syria for the next two days, an Israeli official said on Friday, after days of bloodshed in the predominantly Druze area that has killed over 300 people.

Syrian government forces had largely pulled out of the Druze-majority southern province of Sweida after days of clashes with militias linked to the Druze religious minority that threatened to unravel the country’s fragile post-war transition.

In the last barely-functional hospital in Sweida, bodies are overflowing from the morgue, staff said, amid violence that has wracked the Druze-majority southern Syrian city for nearly a week."There's no more space in the morgue,

The Israeli army continued to build a concrete wall on Friday to enforce the fence area separating the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights from Syria.

Syria's government misread how Israel would respond to its troops deploying to the country's south this week, encouraged by US messaging that Syria should be governed as a centralized state, eight sources familiar with the matter told Reuters.

Syrian security forces are preparing to redeploy to the Druze-majority Sweida city to quell fighting with Bedouin tribes, a Syrian interior ministry spokesperson said on Friday, further straining a fragile truce in Syria's south.