Carrying Syrian flags and pictures of President Bashar Assad, dozens of Israeli Druze who live in the Golan Heights gathered on Saturday to celebrate what they consider to be success in the long Syrian civil war.
Dressed in traditional black garb and white hats, the small crowd chanted and shouted into megaphones, pledging loyalty to Assad. Syrian soldiers stationed across the security fence and on the opposite side of a valley hundreds of meters away yelled back in support of the Druze.
The Druze are an Arab minority who practice an offshoot of Islam and whose adherents in Syria have long been loyal to the ruling Assad family.
Emil Masoud, 38, who lives in the village of Masade, said the Israeli Druze gathered to "celebrate the final stages of the war ... and to celebrate with our people in Syria the final stage of victory."
Israel has largely stayed on the sidelines of Syria's seven-year civil war.
The border itself has been mostly calm, with occasional stray fire from Syria or brief exchanges, though heavy fighting could be easily heard and seen in the distance.
Israeli Druze, some of whom have influence in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government and the military, have at times urged Israel to intervene across the frontier, where hundreds of thousands of Syrians have been killed and millions driven from their homes during the civil war.
The Golan Heights was part of Syria until Israel captured it in the 1967 Six-Day War and annexed the territory in 1981.
