Dr Talat Amer, a surgeon at Sweida National Hospital in southern Syria, worked tirelessly for three days as bombs fell and the building came under siege from government and militia forces.

Scores of people have been killed in Syria's southern governorate of Suwayda after clashes began between local Sunni Bedouin tribes and Druze armed factions. A ceasefire agreement was announced Wednesday after neighbouring Israel launched strikes on Syrian military forces,

Syria's Islamist-led government struggled to implement a ceasefire in the predominantly Druze region of Sweida on Saturday, with machinegun fire and mortar shelling ringing out after days of bloodshed.

Tom Barrack, who is the US ambassador to Turkey and Special Envoy to Syria and is aiding ceasefire talks, said the deal had the backing of Turkey, a key supporter of Syria’s interim president, as well as neighbouring Jordan.

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.

At the center of a crisis in Syria are the Druze — a secretive religious minority that long carved out a precarious identity across Syria, Lebanon and Israel.

As a fragile ceasefire holds in southern Syria following deadly clashes, a Syrian Druze writer in exile Sarah Hunaidi tells CNN it’s a “horrible situation” on the ground, as food supplies run low and hospitals remain out of service.

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.