Israeli Druze Block Army Vehicle to Search for Syrian Rebels
Israeli Druze on Monday blocked and threw stones at an army vehicle they believed was transferring wounded Syrian rebels for treatment, police said.
The incident took place as concern grew for the fate in neighboring Syria of members of the Druze minority, traditional allies of President Bashar Assad, who are surrounded by rebels in the country's more than four-year civil war.
"A group of people, Druze residents, blocked the road in front of a military vehicle, attempting to check the identity of its occupants" in the northern Israeli town of Horfish, police spokeswoman Luba Samri said in a statement.
The Druze threw stones at the vehicle as it tried to drive off, she said, adding that one Druze was moderately injured in the incident.
Samri told AFP the Druze had thought the vehicle was an army ambulance transferring wounded Syrian rebels from across the frontier for medical treatment.
She did not elaborate, and the army had no immediate comment.
Israel shares a ceasefire line with Syria in the Golan Heights, and has let hundreds of wounded Syrians into the country for medical treatment.
Tension in the Druze areas of northern Israel and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights has recently heightened, with rebels surrounding a government-held Druze village on the Syrian side last week.
Israel's Druze are concerned for the fate of their brethren in Syria, and the Israeli army has pledged to protect any refugees who fled towards Israel.
On June 10, at least 20 Druze were killed in an unprecedented shoot-out with al-Qaida affiliate al-Nusra Front in northwestern Syria, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
Officials say there are 110,000 Druze in northern Israel, and another 20,000 in the Israeli-held Golan.
Israel seized 1,200 square kilometers (460 square miles) of the Golan Heights in the Six-Day War of 1967 and later annexed it in a move never recognized by the international community.
Source: Agence France Presse
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