Israel launched rare strikes in Damascus on Wednesday in a campaign it said was aimed at defending the Druze community after days of clashes in the southern city of Sweida.

BEIRUT—An eruption of violence in Syria this week entangled government forces, Bedouin tribes, the Druze religious minority and neighboring Israel, and highlighted just how combustible the country remains seven months after its longtime authoritarian leader was toppled.

The attack follows a wave of Israeli strikes on Syrian government forces during two days of sectarian clashes between local Druze and Bedouin populations.

Sectarian violence erupted again in southern Syria as local Sunni Bedouin tribes fought armed factions for the Druze religious community. The Syrian government dispatched troops to restore order, and Israel launched airstrikes to protect the Druze.

One day after reaching a ceasefire with Israel, Syrian military forces began moving into the country's Suwayda Governorate, where dozens of people have been killed in recent days amid fighting between warring tribes.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a U.K.-based war monitor, said the clashes started after members of a Bedouin tribe in Sweida province set up a checkpoint where they attacked and robbed a Druze man, leading to tit-for-tat attacks and kidnappings between the tribes and Druze armed groups.

Mr. Funk was the managing editor of Pleroma Media, and worked as a breaking news reporter at The Messenger after spending 25 years at Fox Television as a producer, executive producer, and digital content director.

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.

Syrian security forces are preparing to redeploy to the Druze-majority Sweida city to quell fighting with Bedouin tribes, a Syrian interior ministry spokesperson said on Friday, further straining a fragile truce in Syria's south.