Clashes have erupted again between Druze militias and Bedouin clans in southern Syria. Government forces withdrew from the area earlier this week under a U.S.

Syrian government forces prepared to return to a southern region Friday after renewed clashes broke out between Druze armed groups and members of Bedouin clans, leaving tens of thousands of people displaced in a worsening humanitarian crisis.

Bloodshed in Sweida left at least 321 people dead, the Syrian Network for Human Rights said on Friday, in a new toll.

Syria's Druze have reached a ceasefire agreement with the Syrian government in Sweida that will take immediate effect, Druze religious leader Sheikh Yousef Jarbou said in a video broadcast by state media on Wednesday.

Syrian government forces have started withdrawing from the southern province of Sweida following days of vicious clashes with militias from the Druze minority.

Armed tribes supported by Syria's Islamist-led government clashed with Druze fighters in the community's Sweida heartland on Friday, a day after the army withdrew under Israeli bombardment and diplomatic pressure.

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.

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.