After five days of hunkering down at his home in the southern city of Sweida, 33-year-old Hossam emerged on Thursday and drove around to survey the damage. Wherever he went, the smell of death lingered.

Syrian troops 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.

Clashes that shook southern Syria this week have killed hundreds of people, including civilians, and drawn in an array of both local and international players, harking back to the dynamics of the country's nearly 14-year civil war.

"If Israel feels that a certain leader...is an evident threat to its national security, it will operate," a former Israeli envoy told Newsweek.

As tensions between Syria’s Druze and Bedouin fighters escalate, Israel conducted its first airstrike in the Syrian city of Sweida after the withdrawal of Syrian government forces from the province

Residents emerged from their homes to scenes of devastation on Thursday after government forces withdrew from the Syrian Druze-majority city of Sweida, leaving behind looted shops, burned homes and

More than 500 people have been killed in the sectarian violence that has consumed the southern province of Sweida in Syria since Sunday, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. The recent violence was one of the deadliest bouts of unrest in Syria since the collapse of the Assad regime.

The Islamist-led government's troops withdrew from the predominantly Druze city of Sweida, where scores of people have been killed in days of conflict.