Israeli Arab killed in Syrian civil war
9/18/2013JERUSALEM — A family in Israel’s Arab minority is mourning the death of their son, killed fighting in the Syrian civil war.
Zaki Agbariah said he is proud of his 28-year-old son Mueid. The family told Channel 1 television today that Mueid didn’t tell anybody that he was going to Syria to fight.
This is the first known incident of an Arab-Israeli killed while fighting in the Syrian war. But it is not the first case of an Arab with Israeli citizenship joining the fighting.
In July, Israel’s internal intelligence agency detained an Israeli Arab whom it said joined Jabhat al-Nusra, an al-Qaida-linked rebel group fighting President Bashar Assad’s forces.
Israel says its position is that it does not want to get involved in the fighting raging near its northern frontier.