Syrian state media praised Druze
villagers in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights on Tuesday for
attacking an Israeli military ambulance they said was carrying
two insurgents from a group fighting President Bashar al-Assad.
The Israeli army said one of the men in the ambulance was
killed as a result of the attack it described as a lynching.
The incident in the Golan village of Majdal Shams
overlooking Syrian territory was the second attack by Druze on
an Israeli army ambulance in less than 24 hours.
It reflected rising Druze agitation over what the community
sees as Israel's failure to help embattled Druze brethren in
Syria while offering medical aid to Syrian civilians and
combatants who include anti-Assad fighters.
Insurgent advances towards Druze areas in southern Syria and
a mass killing of Druze by Nusra Front fighters in the northwest
have fuelled fears among the minority. Concern has also rippled
through Lebanon and Israel, which both have Druze communities.
A report on state news agency SANA described the Druze
villagers as "heroic Syrian young men" and identified the
insurgents as members of the al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front.
SANA said the Druze had inflicted "the punishment on them
for their participation in the aggression on the mother
homeland, Syria, and its people".
The Israeli military declined to elaborate on the identities
of the Syrians who were in the ambulance.
Speaking on Israel's Army Radio, Brigadier-General Moti
Almoz said: "About 100 people stormed the wounded people and as
a result of this contact the injured men's condition
deteriorated and one of them died - this was a lynching, yes."
He said the men in the ambulance were Syrian citizens
injured in Syrian civil war fighting, but did not explicitly say
whether they were fighters or civilians.
Insurgents last week launched a new offensive against the
Syrian military and allied militia in the southwestern province
of Quneitra, which borders the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.
Their advance near the Druze village of Hader has compounded
Druze concerns that their minority faces a risk from the
insurgency.
Nusra Front fighters earlier this month shot dead at least
20 Druze villagers in the northwestern province of Idlib.
An alliance of rebels who profess a secular vision for Syria
say they launched the latest Quneitra offensive and have
excluded the Nusra Front from the fighting. Nusra does however
have a presence in the south.
The Druze practice a religion that is an offshoot of Islam
and seen as heretical by the puritanical brand of Sunni Islamism
espoused by al Qaeda.
REUTERS