The army said the paraglider took off from the southern section of the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, adjacent to southern Syria.
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Israeli army searches for paraglider, suspecting he tried to cross the border to join rebels, Israeli media reports.
A minister from Mr Netanyahu’s rightist Likud party, Ofir Akunis, told reporters that the Israeli Arab had “crossed to the border into Syria…to join ISIS [Islamic State] forces”.
The IDF mobilized large forces along the border after a military lookout spotted the hang glider crossing from Israel and landing inside Syria.
Military officials said the unnamed 23-year-old man from the predominantly Arab town of Jaljulia in Israel used the paraglider to cross the border on Saturday.
“We believe he planned this move to the other side, and joined a group there”, Brig. The area he landed in is controlled by the Yarmouk Martyrs Brigade, a breakaway from al-Qa’ida that pledged allegiance to the Islamic State. “We will act to nullify his citizenship”.
A statement released prior to Ya’alon’s departure Sunday evening defined the visit as “of utmost importance”, with the two defense chiefs slated to discuss Israeli security needs and continued U.S. military aid for the coming decade. “Whoever joins the ranks of the enemy to fight against Israel, will not be an Israeli citizen”.
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The man’s flight on Saturday across the fortified Golan Heights frontier unnerved Israel, which has seen dozens of its minority Muslim Arabs or Palestinians from East Jerusalem reach the Syrian civil war through legal destinations such as Turkey. “I don’t think the Arab population in the state of Israel supports Da’esh”, Ya’alon said, using the Arabic acronym for ISIL.
