Sylvain Mercadier, who contributes to the French publication Marianne, was documenting Israeli military activity in Syria when he was taken into custody alongside his fixer, according to Marianne, as reported by AP.

Mercadier said Israeli soldiers beat him while he lay on the ground and hit his colleague, Mohammed al-Fayyad, in the back of the head with a rifle butt. They were "mistreated for more than four hours" and had their equipment "stolen" by the Israeli army.

“We were handcuffed and blindfolded. … We were threatened and humiliated,” he said in a post on X.

They were left with cuts and bruises, notably where their wrists were tightly restrained, after more than four hours of what Mercadier called mistreatment.

“We had done nothing but do our work: journalism,” he wrote.

Hi Everyone,
Today, alongside my fixer Mohammed al Fayyad, I was arrested by the Israeli army in the village of Hamidiye . We were handcuffed and blindfolded, brought to the governorate's house (muhafaza) and misstreated for more than 4 hours.
We were threatened and humiliated

— Sylvain Mercadier (@Sylv_Mercadier) January 8, 2025

Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani, an Israeli military spokesperson, said the journalist had come “too close” to soldiers on a number of occasions and did the same on Wednesday.

He said the troops “took him shortly and then released him, understanding he’s not posing a threat.”

Since the fall of Bashar Al-Assad, Israel has occupied several sites along the border with Syria, intensifying its military presence in the country.

It also approved a plan to increase the Israeli population in the occupied Golan Heights after seizing a UN-monitored buffer zone in Syria last December.

Mercadier said he was reporting near Hamidiye, a village in Quneitra province in southern Syria.

Israeli forces occupied the area last month, which lies in a U.N.-patrolled buffer zone.

UN chief Antonio Guterres condemned the Israeli incursion as a violation of the 1974 armistice with Syria.