Israel police arrest Arab Druze suspects over attacks on ambulances

Israeli police Wednesday carried out "mass arrests" of Arab Druze suspected of two attacks, one of them fatal, on military ambulances transporting casualties from Syria's civil war.

A police statement said that an "mass arrests were carried out overnight of suspects involved in two attacks on ambulances," one near Majdal Shams in the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights and the other in the village of Hurfesh by Upper Galilee.

Further details of the investigation were under a gag order.

Israeli media reported that between nine to 10 suspects were arrested over the attacks on two Israeli military vehicles transporting Syrian rebel casualties from the border to a hospital.

One ambulance managed to escape with the patient unharmed whereas the second patient was dragged out of the vehicle and beaten to death.

The attack, widely condemned by Druze leaders, was described by Israeli media outlets as a lynching.

The attackers were angered by reports that dozens of militants from the al-Qaeda affiliated al-Nusra Front, who are fighting the Druze in Syria, are being treated in Israeli hospitals. An unexpected al-Nusra attack June 10 killed at least 20 Druze.

The Druze in the Golan Heights protested demanding that Israel prevent a massacre of their brethren and deny medical care to Nusra fighters.

In an attempt to reinstate control, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu invited the Druze leader for a meeting in his Jerusalem office Wednesday.

"I call on the leaders of the Druze community, a community with whom we share a brotherly bond, who are Israeli citizens, I call on them to soothe temperaments and ask each Druze to respect the law, respect Israeli soldiers and not take the law into their hands," he said in a statement.

He said the police "will locate the perpetrators of the lynching and prosecute them to the full extent of the law."

The Druze is a small Arab sect in the Middle East, primarily based in Lebanon, Syria and Israel, which divorced Islam in the 11th century. Approximately 140,000 Druze live in Israel and maintain family and cultural ties with fellow Syrians and Lebanese.

Israeli officials, responding to the agitation among the Druze in Israel over the attack, said they will not stand by idly if a massacre is committed.

Throughout the last few years of the Syrian civil war, Israel stated it would not interfere in the war, yet will provide medical care to Syrian casualties who arrive at the Israeli border. Endit