A French journalist was briefly detained by Israeli troops on Wednesday in the buffer zone that separated Israeli and Syrian forces in the Golan Heights until Israel entered it last month, the army said.
Spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Shoshani told a press briefing that the journalist "came too close to the soldiers, was questioned and then released".
Sylvain Mercadier, a freelance reporter working for French magazine Marianne, posted on X that he and his colleague, Mohammed Fayad, were "mistreated for more than four hours" and had their equipment "stolen" by the Israeli army.
But Shoshani denied that any of his equipment had been removed.
Press watchdog Reporters Without Borders said it was relieved to learn of the release of Mercadier and his fixer after they were "assaulted and arrested this afternoon by Israeli armed forces".
Israeli troops entered the UN-patrolled buffer zone in the Golan in early December during the lightning rebel offensive that toppled longtime Syrian strongman Bashar al-Assad.
UN chief Antonio Guterres condemned the Israeli incursion as a violation of the 1974 armistice with Syria.
With AFP
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