Israel has released three Fijian UN peacekeepers who were arrested for drug smuggling last week, after it emerged the suspicious substance they were carrying across the border was not liquid cocaine, police said Sunday, according to the AFP news agency.
The three soldiers, who are serving with the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force in the Golan Heights, were detained on June 25 at Israel's border with Jordan.
Israel's Tax Authority and police said at the time they were stopped during a routine inspection at the Jordan River Crossing, also known as Sheikh Hussein Bridge.
Suspicions were raised about perfume-making kits that members of the group were allegedly carrying and "which included bottles with liquid cocaine", the statement last week said.
Authorities in Suva have confirmed the soldiers were serving in the Fiji Battalion of the UN force.
Their remand was extended once on Wednesday, but on Friday they were released from custody "after it turned out that the substance in the bottles was not drugs," a police spokesman told AFP.
UNDOF was set up in 1974 and is tasked with monitoring a ceasefire on the buffer zone located on the Israel-Syria border.
Today, the force includes about 1,000 troops from a dozen nations, including Fiji, Argentina, Ireland and Nepal.
UNDOF briefly withdrew from the Syria-Israel border in 2014, after Al-Qaeda-linked rebels overran the area, but ultimately returned to the region.
In late August of 2014, rebels on the Syrian side including Al-Qaeda affiliate Al-Nusra Front kidnapped more than 40 Fijian UNDOF troops and released them unharmed two weeks later.
The fighters also clashed with 75 Filipino members of the force, who eventually fled a nearby outpost in a worrying sign of spillover from Syria's war and were recalled back to their home country.