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, eight sources familiar with the matter told Reuters.

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.

Israel and Syria have agreed to a ceasefire, the U.S. envoy to Turkey said on Friday, after days of bloodshed in the predominantly Druze area that has killed over 300 people.

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.

Syrian troops on Thursday pulled out of the Druze heartland of Sweida on the orders of the Islamist-led government, following days of deadly clashes that killed nearly 600 people, according to a war monitor.

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.

In Syria's Druze-majority city of Sweida, residents said they have been living in terror since the arrival of government forces who have been carrying out what witnesses and a war monitor have called summary executions.