Syria's leader accusedIsraelon Thursday of sowing discord with a wave of intense airstrikes followingdeadly sectarian clashesthat threatened the country's fragile unity and illustrated its neighbor's capacity to attack across the region. In a televised speech, Interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa promised to protect the rights and freedom of Syria'sDruze community— and avoid an "open war" withIsrael. He saidSyria"will never be a place for division or fragmentation" as he called protecting the rights of the religious minority a "priority" of his administration. His comments came after the Syrian government and leaders in the Druze communityannounced a renewed ceasefireWednesday after days of clashes in the southern city of Sweida threatened the relative stability achieved in the country since thetoppling of the Assad regimein December. Government forces were withdrawing from the area, the Associated Press news agency reported, though aprevious ceasefirein the area quickly crumbled and it was not immediately clear whether the latest truce would hold. Israellaunched rare strikes in Damascusand elsewhere on Wednesday in a campaign it said was aimed at defending the Druze, who also have a strong presence in Israel — and to force Islamic militants away from its border. "We are not among those who fear war," Sharaa said Thursday, as he accused Israel of "targeting our stability and creating discord among us since the fall of the former regime," according to a transcript from the Reuters news agency. "But we put the interests of the Syrians before chaos and destruction," he said, adding that local factions and sheikhs had been assigned the responsibility of maintaining security in Sweida. "We are very worried about the violence in southern Syria," Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Wednesday, calling it a "direct threat to efforts to help build a peaceful and stable Syria." He added that the Trump administration had "been and remain in repeated and constant talks with the governments of Syria and Israel on this matter." The flare-up of violence appears to mark the most serious threat yet to the fragile control Syria's new leadership holds over the country following dictator Bashar al-Assad's ouster, with repeated eruptions of violence threatening to undermine Sharaa'svow to rebuild a more inclusive Syriarepresentative of its myriad religious and ethnic groups. Sharaa has worked hard in recent months toshake off his past as a jihadist leaderwith links to both the Islamic State terrorist group and Al Qaeda. The Trump administration's move to revoke the foreign terrorist organization designation for his Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham group signaled growing, but cautious, global confidence in his leadership.