at least 37 dead in fighting between mainly Kurdish forces and Turkish-backed factions

Independent journalist Sylvain Mercier was arrested by the Israeli army on Wednesday January 8, around 10:30 a.m., in the village of Al-Hmidaiah, in Syria, while he was in the company of a lawyer from this country, reports Marianne. The reporter, a contributor to the weekly, covered the advance of Israeli troops deployed in the demilitarized buffer zone of the Golan, in southwest Syria, on the edge of the part of this plateau occupied by Israel since 1967 and annexed in 1981.

“Sylvain negotiated permission to film the Israeli forces arriving in the village. He was wearing a “Press” bulletproof vest.” Despite this, when the soldiers approached him, they confiscated his equipment, then beat him and called him a “mercenary”. They blindfolded him and took him away by force (…) in a car »says Syrian journalist Yousef Gharibi, witness to the arrest, interviewed by the French weekly.

An Israeli army spokesperson confirmed Wednesday that it had arrested a French journalist “in the separation zone between Syria and Israel” before releasing him shortly after. “He got too close to the soldiers, was questioned and then released”said Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Shoshani, during a press briefing with foreign journalists. “This person (…) approached the soldiers on several occasions”he clarified, before adding that the journalist had not been “taken nowhere” and that its material ” neither “.

Announcing his release, Mr. Mercadier described his arrest in detail early Wednesday evening on X. He said he had been “abused for more than four hours” with his collaborator, Mohammed Fayad, and adds that his material was ” stolen “ by the Israeli army.

“When the army ordered us to stop filming, we stopped. When they searched the car, we let them do ithe declares, but when they wanted to confiscate a laptop that was in the car, Mohammed protested and was immediately arrested. » « I myself started to protest against this absurd behavior and we were both arrested”he adds.

The NGO Reporters Without Borders expressed its ” relief “ after the release of the two men, who she said were “attacked and arrested (…) by Israeli forces ».