MAJDAL SHAMS, Israel — When an ambulance rolled through Druze villagesnear the Israeli-Syrian border last month, it was met by an angry mob of stone-throwing protesters shouting that they’d been betrayed by Israel. Surrounding the emergency vehicle, they claimed that Israel’s government is giving medical treatment to Islamist fighters who are now threatening to kill their Druze brethren in Syria. The mob opened up the doors of the ambulance and dragged out the two patients inside, killing one of them.
Druze community leaders deeper inside Israel condemned the episodes as vigilantism, but in the Golan Heights, many Druze fear an imminent attack against their kin in Syria at the hands of the Nusra Front—an al Qaeda offshoot—which is believed to be leading a wider offensive to capture the traditionally pro-regime southern province.