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.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said the Damascus headquarters served as a command center for deploying regime forces to Suwayda, a southern Syrian region gripped by days of deadly clashes between government troops, Druze militias, and Bedouin groups.

Hundreds of people have been killed in days of violence in southern Syria which began with clashes between members of the Druze minority group and Bedouin tribes and drew a military intervention from Syria.

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.

The U.S. envoy to Syria announced on Friday that the country and Israel reached a ceasefire deal. “We call upon Druze, Bedouins, and Sunnis to put down their weapons and together with other minorities build a new and united Syrian identity in peace and prosperity with its neighbors,

A strong central government in Damascus appeals to Trump but not to his allies in Israel. Once again, images of horrifying violence are pouring out of Syria: dead bodies piled up in a hospital corridor. Gunmen calling out insults as they drive their cars over the corpses of murdered civilians.

Several days of bitter sectarian fighting in the south of Syria has brought the fledgling government in Damascus dangerously close to direct conflict with Israel, after Israeli warplanes launched strikes against government buildings in the Syrian capital, Damascus, on July 16.