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Druze Israelis Attack IDF Ambulance Carrying Syrians

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The attack on the IDF ambulance comes amid suspicions that some Syrians being treated may belong to Islamist rebel groups who attack and threaten Druze communities in Syriaria

At least two Syrians in critical condition following incident labelled as ‘lynching’

Dozens of Israeli Druze in the north of the country on Monday attacked an Israel military ambulance that was taking wounded Syrians to a hospital in the city of Nahariya, the second such incident during the day.

The injuries of at least two Syrians were aggravated in the incident, which some Israeli media described as a “lynching,” and their condition is now reported as critical.

Two Israeli soldiers were lightly injured in the incident where the incensed crowd pelted the ambulance with rocks and managed to break into the vehicle, dragging the soldiers away from the Syrians they were guarding, before security forces arriving at the scene could push the crowd away.

The casualties were eventually evacuated to a hospital.

In the earlier incident Monday the Druze villagers ran after vehicle and pelted it with stones, blocking its path.

The driver managed to reach a nearby police station and obtain a police escort for the remainder of the journey.

On Saturday, around 30 Druze protested at the Galil hospital in Nahariya against medical treatment being given to wounded Syrians.

Police present at the scene managed to disperse the protesters without using force.

The protesters maintain that the injured are members of the al-Qaida affiliated Jabhat al-Nusra who are involved in fighting that hurts the Druze community in Syria.

The Israeli Druze community is deeply concerned about the fate of the Druze minority in Syria, warning that about 500,000 of them are under threat. Israel Radio reported that an intensive fund-raising drive over the past week or so among the Druze has generated NIS8 million (almost $2 million).

The Druze community in Israel has showed its concern in the past over the hospitalization in Israel of wounded Syrian fighters from the al-Qaida linked al-Nusra Front.

A statement issued by a group of activists involved in humanitarian aid to their brethren in Syria last year accused the Israeli government of supporting radical Sunni factions fighting against the Syrian government – by enabling them to get medical care. The small Druze community in Israel, like the Druze in neighboring Syria and Lebanon, by and large support the regime of President Bashar Assad, favoring him over the Islamist rebels seeking to topple him.

“As we warned in the past, today it has become a fact that Israel supports all factions fighting the Syrian regime, and supplies them with weapons, and takes in the wounded of all faction, including Jabhat al-Nusra and Daesh,” according to the statement issued by the group last November. “We call on members of the Druze sect to act severely toward Israel’s policy.”

Asked whether Israel does, in fact, hospitalize members of al-Nusra and Daesh (the Arabic acronym for the Islamic State organization), the military spokesman’s office said: “In the past two years the Israel Defense Forces have been engaged in humanitarian, life-saving aid to wounded Syrians, irrespective of their identity.”

According to Israel’s health ministry, so far over 1,600 Syrians have been treated in four Israeli hospitals. Many of the wounded are civilians, and some are members of the secular Free Syrian Army rebel group. Doctors say most arrive in serious condition, some even unconscious, dehydrated and with infected wounds. Some lose a lot of blood before reaching medical care in Israel.

According to sources at the Ziv Hospital in the town of Safed, wounded members of the more militant rebel factions are hospitalized in isolation and are not allowed visitors. Some are handcuffed to their beds.

The sources told i24news that the enmity between the various factions is felt in the hospital too: the wounded do not talk to each other even though they sometimes lie side by side.      (i24 News)

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