Syria announced that its army had begun to withdraw from violence-hit Sweida on Wednesday, following a wave of Israeli strikes on the capital and a US call for government forces to leave the majority-Druze southern city.

The United States, which is close allies with Israel and has been trying to reboot its relationship with Syria, said an agreement had been reached to restore calm in the area, and urged "all parties to deliver on the commitments they have made".

Israeli troops on Wednesday sought to control crowds and prevent Druze from crossing into Syrian territory, after deadly sectarian violence prompted Damascus to send government forces to Syria's south.

Israeli soldiers in the occupied Golan Heights fired teargas to keep order along the heavily fortified frontier as dozens of people tried to cross over, said an AFP reporter in Majdal Shams, a mainly Druze town in the Israeli-annexed area.

The UN's unflinching expert on Palestinian affairs Francesca Albanese said Tuesday that Washington's sanctions following her criticism of the White House's stance on Gaza are a "violation" of her immunity.

The United Nations' Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories made the comments while visiting Bogota, nearly a week after US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced the sanctions, calling her work "biased and malicious."

"It's a very serious measure. It's unprecedented. And I take it very seriously," Albanese told an audience in the Colombian capital.

By Sam Tobin and Andrew MacAskill

LONDON (Reuters) -Britain set up a secret scheme to bring thousands of Afghans to the UK after their personal details were disclosed in one of the country's worst ever data breaches, putting them at risk of reprisals from the Taliban after their return to power.

Concerns that individuals could be targeted by the Taliban led the previous Conservative government to set up the relocation scheme, involving thousands of people and estimated to cost the government about 2 billion pounds ($2.7 billion).

The US ambassador to Israel on Tuesday demanded an aggressive investigation and consequences after settlers beat to death a Palestinian-American, in rare public pressure against the ally by President Donald Trump's administration.

Ambassador Mike Huckabee, an outspoken supporter for years of Jewish settlement in the Palestinian territories, spoke out after an initial muted US official reaction to the death of Saif al-Din Abdul Karim Musalat.

The mainly Druze residents of the Syrian city of Sweida had hoped the arrival of government forces on Tuesday would spell an end to deadly sectarian clashes with local Bedouin tribes.

Instead they spoke of executions, looting and arson as government troops and their allies rampaged through Druze neighbourhoods, prompting thousands from the religious minority to flee.

"Government forces entered the city on the pretext of restoring order... but unfortunately they indulged in savage practices," said Rayan Maarouf, editor in chief of the Suwayda 24 news website.

Thousands of Afghans who worked with the UK and their families were brought to Britain in a secret programme after a 2022 data breach put their lives at risk, the British government revealed on Tuesday.

Defence Minister John Healey unveiled the scheme to parliament after the UK High Court on Tuesday lifted a super-gag order banning any reports of the events.

Clerics and diplomats walked as if in a religious procession through the streets of Taybeh, a small Christian village in the occupied West Bank where residents blame Israeli settlers for a spate of recent attacks.

In cassocks and suits respectively, they answered the call from the local town hall and priests to meet residents affected by the violence and to see for themselves the arson damage on the remains of a Byzantine church.

"It became every day more clear that there is no law. The only law is power," said Jerusalem's Latin Patriarch Pierbattista Pizzaballa.