Israel Releases Iran TV Correspondent

Israel on Sunday released a correspondent in the Golan Heights for Iran's Arabic-language television after four days of detention, police said.

Bassam al-Safadi, a journalist for the Al-Alam news channel, was arrested Wednesday on suspicion of "supporting a terrorist organization and incitement to violence and terrorism," police said.

A court in Nazareth in northern Israel extended his remand until Sunday, when he was released "under limitations, including a five-day house arrest," police said.

In an interview with Beirut-based Al-Alam on Sunday, Safadi said he was "accused of incitement to terrorism, supporting terror organizations and standing behind terror organizations."

The 43-year-old was described by police as Arab Israeli, but many Arab residents of the Golan, who are from the Druze community, consider themselves Syrians.

Iran is an ally of Syria, which is technically at war with Israel, and a sworn enemy of the Jewish state.

Hussein Mortada, head of Al-Alam's office in Syria, said on Wednesday that the arrest was part of a "systematic campaign" by Israel against the media.

Israel seized 1,200 square kilometers (460 square miles) of the Golan Heights from Syria in the 1967 Six-Day War and later annexed it in a move never recognized by the international community.