Syria Declares Cease-Fire After a Week of Upheaval

The Syrian government announced a cease-fire deal on Saturday and said it would redeploy its forces to the restive southern province of Sweida in a new effort to quell a deadly wave of sectarian violence that drew in neighboring Israel.

“The Syrian state has managed to calm the situation despite difficult circumstances,” President Ahmed al-Shara said in a televised address on Saturday, describing the recent bloodshed as a “dangerous turning point” for his nation.

“The Israeli intervention has pushed the country into a dangerous phase that poses a threat to its stability,” he added.

Hours earlier, the U.S. special envoy to Syria, Thomas J. Barrack Jr., said that Israel and Syria had agreed to a truce that he described as a “breakthrough.” Mr. Barrack called on Syrian armed groups — including Bedouin fighters and minority Druse at the center of the recent clashes — to lay down their weapons.

It was not immediately clear how the new truce differed from a cease-fire in Sweida that the Syrian authorities announced Wednesday. That day, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that Washington had worked with all parties involved and had “agreed on specific steps that will bring this troubling and horrifying situation to an end tonight.”

Soon after those comments, the Syrian state news agency, SANA, reported that government forces had begun withdrawing from Sweida. That appeared to end the worst of the violence, though clashes have since continued sporadically in some areas.