Khalidi and Maya Gebeily DAMASCUS/BEIRUT (Reuters) -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,

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.

In the last barely-functional hospital in Sweida, bodies are overflowing from the morgue, staff said, amid violence that has wracked the Druze-majority southern Syrian city for nearly a week."There's no more space in the morgue,

Israel has agreed to allow limited access by Syrian forces into the Sweida area of southern Syria for the next two days, an Israeli official said on Friday, after days of bloodshed in the predominantly Druze area that has killed over 300 people.

Sky's special correspondent Alex Crawford travelled on the road to the embattled Sweida province in Syria as armed groups clashes continue.

(Reuters) -Bloodshed in Sweida left at least 321 people dead, the Syrian Network for Human Rights said on Friday, in a new toll.

Syria's interior ministry spokesperson said on Friday that government forces were not preparing to deploy to Sweida Province, the state news agency reported.

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.