A Druze officer from Galilee serving with the IDF in Lebanon was mortally wounded by fire from Syrian positions on the eastern sector of the front Tuesday.
Capt. Nazem Faris, 26, was rushed to a hospital in Israel when his post was hit by machinegun fire, but he died shortly after admission. He was buried yesterday in his home village in western Galilee.
The Syrian attack on the IDF position was followed by a speedy and massive bombardment of the Syrian positions by Israeli artillery and tank fire. A few Syrian shots were fired at other Israeli positions in neighboring sectors after the exchange.
Another Druze officer serving with the IDF regular forces, Capt. Ayub El-Kara, held a press conference in Haifa yesterday to announce he had resigned from the army in protest at what he termed Israel’s unfair treatment of his co-religionists in Lebanon.
El-Kara, 27, of the Carmel range village of Daliet El-Karmel, said he had discarded his army uniform last week, after nine years service in the IDF, after writing to Chief of Staff Gen. Moshe Levy explaining why he felt he could no longer serve in the army.
He told Levy he thought Israel was wrong in backing the Christian Phalangists in Lebanon, rather than Lebanon’s Druze, who were better and firmer friends of Israel than the Phalangists were.
El-Kara said the Phalangists were attacking his Druze colleagues with arms supplied by Israel. He said he could protest louder and more effectively as a civilian.
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