JERUSALEM: A Druze resident of the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights has been arrested for "security" offenses, police said on Monday, a day after searches for the man sparked protests in his home town.
A court ordered the man, identified by media as Fada Shaar, held for eight days for questioning on suspicion of "involvement in a security investigation," said police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld.
Rosenfeld declined to give further details, citing a court-issued gag-order on details of the investigation.
On Sunday hundreds of residents of Majdel Shams, the main town on the plateau Israel captured from Syria in the 1967 Six-Day War, surrounded Shaar’s house as police were carrying out searches, trapping the officers inside for several hours.
They were eventually released after talks between police and elders in the Druze community.
Witnesses said the confrontation was sparked by police shooting tear gas at residents who were watching the searches, including at least one canister fired into a neighboring house with several small children.
"There was some kind of argument and police started throwing tear gas and more tear gas," said Tayseer Maray, the head of Golan for Development, a group that advocated the rights of the Golan Druze.
At least 20 people were injured in the incident, said Maray, who also works at the local medical centre.
Rosenfeld denied tear gas was fired into homes.
"Gas was fired initially on the street, immediately after that the things calmed down," he said adding that police were unaware of anyone being hospitalized for injuries.
Israel unilaterally annexed the Golan in 1981, but the vast majority of the 18,000 Syrians, mostly Druze, that are left from the Golan’s original population of 150,000, have refused to take Israeli citizenship.
Damascus has repeatedly demanded its return as a non-negotiable condition for peace.
Followers of a breakaway sect of Islam concentrated in Israel, Syria, and Lebanon, the Druze are not considered Muslims by most of the Islamic world.
