By Laila Bassam DAMASCUS (Reuters) -Sectarian clashes escalated in Syria's predominantly Druze region of Sweida on Saturday, with machinegun fire and mortar shelling ringing out after days of bloodshed as the Islamist-led government struggled to implement a ceasefire.

The Druze religious sect, enmeshed in an outbreak of tit-for-tat violence in Syria, began roughly 1,000 years ago as an offshoot of Ismailism, a branch of Shiite Islam.

Dr Talat Amer, a surgeon at Sweida National Hospital in southern Syria, worked tirelessly for three days as bombs fell and the building came under siege from government and militia forces.

Syria's Islamist-led government struggled to implement a ceasefire in the predominantly Druze region of Sweida on Saturday, with machinegun fire and mortar shelling ringing out after days of bloodshed.

Israel is preparing to send medical equipment and medicine to a hospital in Sweida province in southern Syria. According to the Times of Israel, citing the Israeli Health Ministry, security forces would deliver medical aid once it received authorization to do so from all relevant authorities.

Chief Rabbi Kalman Bar and Sheikh Qassem Bader, a senior Druze leader and President of the World Council for Peace, issue a call to the world: 'Prevent further atrocities.'

Syria's Druze are concentrated in the southwest in the Sweida region bordering Jordan and in areas of Quneitra province, near the occupied Golan. They also reside in the Damascus

Hundreds of Druze from Israel pushed across the border in solidarity with their Syrian cousins they feared were under attack. Many then met relatives they had never seen before.

Members of Syria's Druze community are searching for loved ones and counting their dead after days of clashes in a southern province that left bloodied bodies of civilians on the streets and homes looted.

At the center of a crisis in Syria are the Druze — a secretive religious minority that long carved out a precarious identity across Syria, Lebanon and Israel.

Syria's Islamist-led government said its security forces were deploying in the predominantly Druze southern city of Sweida on Saturday and urged all parties to respect a ceasefire after days of factional bloodshed in which hundreds have been killed.