An unidentified Arab Israeli crossed into Syria using a paraglider Saturday with the apparent goal of joining rebel fighters there, the Israeli army said.
An Israeli Defense Force "surveillance post identified a paraglider entering Syria," an IDF spokesperson announced in a tweet early Sunday morning, adding that current investigation indicates he crossed intentionally, possibly to join Syrian rebel forces.
"We don't know if people were waiting for him there," IDF spokesman Brig. Gen. Moti Almoz told Israeli media Saturday, "but we estimate that whoever did this kind of thing — against the direction of gliding — did so on purpose."
The IDF did not immediately respond to BuzzFeed News' request for comment.
Yesterday: IDF surveillance post identified a paraglider entering Syria. Initial investigation suggests Israeli-Arab crossed intentionally.
The paraglider was most likely a resident of Jaljulia, an Arab town in central Israel, Almoz said, and he appeared to have taken off from the southern section of the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, adjacent to southern Syria around 5 p.m. local time on Saturday. Large military forces were seen in the area, and aircrafts attempted to identify his landing site, Israel's Haaretz reported.
Almoz did not identify the man, but said he was 23 years old.
Family and nieghbors spoke to Haaretz, saying that although the family is secular the man had "become religious" over the past year. A family member said the man's father received an anonymous phone call Saturday night in which he was told, “Your son is fine. He’s with us. Don’t worry,” before the call was cut off.
“From the moment his mother understood what happened, she’s been crying and shouting for him to come home," the man's uncle told Haaretz, adding that how the man managed to purchase the hang glider, hide it, and practice flying it is a mystery to his family.
On Sunday morning Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly said in a cabinet meeting that he would take steps to have the man's citizenship revoked.