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An uneasy calm returned to southern Syria’s Sweida province on Sunday, after fighters withdrew following a week of violence estimated to have killed more than 1,000 people.

Local people told news agencies the area was calm after Syria’s Islamist-led government said Bedouin fighters had left the predominantly Druze city.

The London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said Sweida had been experiencing “a cautious calm since the early hours of Sunday morning”, but warned of “the deterioration of the humanitarian situation” including a severe shortage of basic medical supplies.

The SOHR reported on Sunday that more than 1,000 people had been killed in armed clashes, bombardment, extrajudicial executions and Israeli airstrikes since the violence in Sweida province began a week ago. The United Nations migration agency said the number of people displaced by the violence had risen to more than 128,000.

One local resident, dentist Kenan Azzam, told Reuters on Sunday morning the situation was one of “a tense calm” but people were still struggling with a lack of water and electricity. “The hospitals are a disaster and out of service, and there are still so many dead and wounded,” he said.

Agence France-Presse correspondents on the outskirts of Sweida city reported there were no sounds of fighting, adding humanitarian convoys were preparing to enter the Druze-majority town.

The Syrian Arab Red Crescent humanitarian organisation announced it was sending 32 trucks to Sweida loaded with food, medicine, water, fuel and other aid, after the fighting left the province with power cuts and shortages. The state-run Syrian Arab News Agency said the health ministry was also sending a convoy of trucks.

The violence was triggered by a dispute between a Bedouin tribesman and a member of the Druze, who are a minority in wider Syria, which prompted government forces to intervene. Druze fighters resisted their entry into the province and violence escalated, turning into days of terror for local people. In response, Israel, which has vowed to protect the Druze community, launched airstrikes on Syria’s defence ministry in Damascus and dozens of military targets in the south of the country.

A ceasefire agreement between Syria and Israel had been announced by the US early on Saturday to prevent further Israeli military intervention.

Early on Sunday, the US stepped up calls for an end to the fighting. “All factions must immediately lay down their arms, cease hostilities, and abandon cycles of tribal vengeance,” the US special envoy to Syria, Tom Barrack, wrote on X. “Syria stands at a critical juncture – peace and dialogue must prevail – and prevail now.”

A few hours earlier, the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, issued a warning to Syria’s new government, whose forces have been accused by Druze factions of committing abuses, including summary executions, when they entered Sweida earlier in the week.

Rubio wrote on X: “If authorities in Damascus want to preserve any chance of achieving a unified, inclusive and peaceful Syria free of Isis [Islamic State] and of Iranian control they must help end this calamity by using their security forces to prevent Isis and any other violent jihadists from entering the area and carrying out massacres. And they must hold accountable and bring to justice anyone guilty of atrocities including those in their own ranks.”

Two members of the government forces posted sectarian hate speech against Druze, according to private social media seen by the Guardian’s correspondent in Beirut.

One posted a video of him and two other soldiers driving through Sweida laughing as he said: “We are on our way to distribute aid,” while brandishing a machete to the camera. He filmed himself inside a house in Sweida ripping a picture of Druze spiritual leaders off a wall and trampling it with his boots.

The last week has been the worst outbreak of violence since March, when 1,500 mostly Alawite citizens were massacred in revenge for a failed attack by supporters of the ousted dictator Bashar al-Assad, who came from the sect.

The second round of sectarian violence has tempered international hopes for the new Syrian government, which came to power last December after the sudden fall of the Assad regime. Western governments, the US, the UK and the EU, lifted sanctions in an effort to aid Syria’s battered economy and economic reconstruction, after 13 years of civil war and repression by the Assad regime, which killed more than half a million people, leaving 90% of the population in poverty.

The EU said on Saturday it was “appalled by the hundreds of victims” of the recent violence, including that “reportedly perpetrated by several armed groups against unarmed civilians”. In a statement, the EU foreign service urged “all parties to immediately stop all acts of violence, to protect all civilians without distinction, and to take immediate steps to prevent incitement and sectarian discourse”.

The EU also called on “Israel and all other foreign actors to fully respect Syria’s sovereignty and territorial integrity”.

Syria’s interim president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, on Saturday announced a ceasefire in Sweida and renewed his promise to protect Syria’s ethnic and religious minorities.

Sharaa, who was more sympathetic to the Bedouins, had tried to appeal to the Druze community while remaining critical of the militias. He later urged the Bedouins to leave the city, saying they “cannot replace the role of the state in handling the country’s affairs and restoring security”.

The interior ministry said overnight that Sweida city was “evacuated of all tribal fighters, and clashes within the city’s neighbourhoods were halted”.

A spokesperson for Syria’s tribal and clan council told Al Jazeera late on Saturday that fighters had left the city “in response to the call of the presidency and the terms of the agreement”.

A “cautious calm” has returned to the Syrian city of Suweida after a week of deadly tribal clashes between Druze fighters, Bedouin gunmen and government forces, a UK-based monitoring group has said.

Residents reported that fighting stopped on Sunday as Syria’s Islamist-led government declared the Bedouins had withdrawn from the predominantly Druze city “after days of bloody battles and chaos”, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said.

It followed a ceasefire announced by Syria’s president on Saturday, which did not quell fighting straight away.

More than 1,000 people have been killed in the clashes and there is now a severe shortage of medical supplies in the city, the SOHR added.

At least 128,000 people have been displaced by the violence, the United Nations migration agency said on Sunday.

“Activists have reported that Suweida has been experiencing a cautious calm since the early hours of Sunday morning,” the SOHR said.

“Meanwhile, the Syrian government security forces closed roads leading to Suweida to tribes, using soil barriers to prevent vehicles from crossing, except for ambulances, in a move to contain tensions.”

The SOHR added that the city remains under the control of local Druze fighters, while tribal gunmen have withdrawn from several areas within the province.

Long-running tensions between Druze and Bedouin tribes erupted into deadly sectarian clashes a week ago, after the abduction of a Druze merchant on the road to the capital Damascus.

Interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa’s government responded by deploying forces to the city.

Both Druze and Bedouin fighters have been accused of atrocities over the past seven days, as well as members of the security forces and individuals affiliated with the interim government.

On Saturday, al-Sharaa announced a ceasefire and sent security forces to Suweida to end the fighting.

It has been reported that Druze fighters pushed Bedouin gunmen out of the city on Saturday evening – but violence continued in other parts of the province. This has not been verified by the BBC.

On Sunday morning, fighting could not be heard, AFP correspondents near Suweida reported.

Meanwhile, the SOHR warned that the humanitarian situation in the city was worsening, pointing to a “severe shortage” of basic medical supplies.

An unnamed resident said that aid was needed immediately, telling the Reuters news agency: “The smell of corpses is spread throughout the national hospital.”

Kenan Azzam, a local dentist speaking as the city was gripped by what he called a “tense calm”, said the hospitals were “a disaster and out of service”.

A Suweida medic told AFP that “no relief or medical assistance” had entered the city before Sunday.

TOKYO (Reuters) – Japan’s ruling coalition is likely to lose its majority in the upper house, exit polls showed after Sunday’s election, potentially heralding political turmoil as a tariff deadline with the United States looms.

While the ballot does not directly determine whether Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba’s shaky minority government falls, it heaps pressure on the embattled leader who also lost control of the more powerful lower house in October.

Ishiba’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and coalition partner Komeito needed 50 seats to retain control of the 248-seat upper chamber in an election where half the seats were up for grabs. They are forecast to secure 32 to 51 seats, the exit poll by public broadcaster NHK showed.

Other broadcasters forecast the ruling coalition would hold 41-43 seats. If the coalition holds less than 46 seats, it would mark its worst result since the coalition was formed in 1999.

That comes on top of its worst showing in 15 years in October’s lower house election.

That has left Ishiba vulnerable to no-confidence motions that could topple his administration and trigger a fresh general election.

Opposition parties advocating for tax cuts and increased welfare spending look set to make gains, the exit polls show, with rising consumer prices – particularly a jump in the cost of the staple rice – a key issue for voters.

“The LDP was largely playing defence in this election, being on the wrong side of a key voter issue,” said David Boling, a director at consulting firm Eurasia Group.

“Polls show that most households want a cut to the consumption tax to address inflation, something that the LDP opposes. Opposition parties seized on it and hammered that message home.”

The LDP have been urging for fiscal restraint, with one eye on a very jittery government bond market, as investors worry about Japan’s ability to refinance the world’s largest debt pile.

Adding to the anxiety around the world’s fourth largest economy, Japan faces a deadline of August 1 to strike a trade deal with the United States or face punishing tariffs in its largest export market.