U.S. envoy to Syria Tom Barrack says that Israel and Syria have agreed to a ceasefire following Israel’s intervention this week in fighting between Syrian government forces and .

Syria's new government sent troops to quell fighting between the Druze religious minority and Sunni Muslim tribes. Then Israel intervened, bombing Damascus.

Syria should not be allowed back into the international community unless it is able to uphold protections for the Druze and its other minority groups, Israel has said.

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More than 100 demonstrators from Canada's Druze community gathered on Parliament Hill on Friday afternoon, asking for the government to intervene in an unfolding humanitarian crisis in Syria where hundreds have already been killed.

President Trump’s special envoy for Syria on Monday criticized Israeli strikes against the country last week as poorly timed and complicating efforts to stabilize the region, in an interview with The Associated Press.

Hundreds of Druze from Israel pushed across the border in solidarity with their Syrian cousins they feared were under attack. Many then met relatives they had never seen before.

Violence in Syria pitting the Islamist-led government against members of the Druze community has put a spotlight on the small but influential minority. Straddling Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Israel and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights,

The Druze religious sect, enmeshed in an outbreak of tit-for-tat violence in Syria, began roughly 1,000 years ago as an offshoot of Ismailism, a branch of Shiite Islam.