WarSclerotic

8 UN troops abandon Syria post, march to Israel – Israel News, Ynetnews.

Peacekeepers ordered by their commander to leave post in Syria for fear of additional kidnappings; IDF soldiers meet them at border crossing

Yoav Zitun

Two days after 21 Filipino UN peacekeepers were kidnapped by Syrian rebels in the village of Jamlah, situated less than a mile from the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights, eight other UN monitors from the Philippines abandoned their position on Friday and crossed the border into Israel.

The soldiers, who belong to a UN force that has patrolled a ceasefire line between Israel and Syria for nearly four decades, were ordered by their commander to abandon the post for fear rebels may attempt to capture more peacekeepers.

An IDF force stationed in the Golan met the peacekeepers at one of the gates along the border fence along with UN personnel who arrived from the Israeli side of the border. The Israeli army stressed that its soldiers did not cross the border to pick up the peacekeepers.

Archive photo: AFP

The IDF was expected to transport the peacekeepers to the UN’s Ein Zivanit base, located near the Quneitra Crossing.

Some two weeks ago Croatia announced that it is withdrawing its 100 troops from the buffer zone separating Israel and Syria. The Croatian government said it feared for the soldiers’ safety after reports that Saudi Arabia had bought arms from Croatia and then provided them to the Syrian rebels.

This entry was posted on March 8, 2013 at 2:24 PM and is filed under Uncategorized. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.