The Golan Heights, a rocky plateau where 12 young men were killed on Saturday during clashes between Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Israeli forces, is a strategic region that Israel partially captured from Syria.
After conquering about two-thirds of the plateau during the 1967 Arab–Israeli War, Israel occupied the region in 1981, which has not been recognised by the international community, except by the United States since 2019.
The water-rich Golan Heights overlook the Galilee region of northern Israel and the Sea of Galilee and dominates the route to Damascus in Syrian-controlled territory.
Abduction of state
The Golan, the Biblical Hebrew name for the region, or Jaulān in Arabic, has been coveted by empires and foreign rulers for millennia.
It was occupied by Herod, the Franks, the Ottomans and others and eventually became part of Syria, which gained independence from the French in 1946.
Israel captured most of the area on June 9, 1967, after a fierce battle with the Syrian army, which was shelling Israeli positions below.
Israel seized an additional area of about 510 square kilometers (about 200 square miles) during the 1973 war, but returned much of it to Syria under a ceasefire agreement the following year, along with a small part of the territory captured in 1967.
The 1974 agreement created a demilitarized buffer zone, and a United Nations observer force has been monitoring the ceasefire line on the Golan Heights since then.
The approximately 1,200 square kilometre area of the Golan Heights, which also borders Lebanon and Jordan, was annexed by Israel on December 14, 1981.
When Israel occupied the Golan Heights, thousands of Syrian and Palestinian residents fled or were expelled, although some remained in Israeli-controlled areas.
Today, about 25,000 Israeli settlers live there, as well as about 23,000 members of the Druze community, a branch of Shia Islam.
The Golan Druze are predominantly Syrian, but in Israel they have resident status, not citizenship.
Water
The volcanic plateau contains important water sources, such as the Banyas, which provides water to the Jordan River.
The Hasbani River, which originates in Lebanon, flows through the Golan Heights before draining into Jordan, as does the Dan River.
Israeli-Syrian peace talks in the 1990s stalled over the Golan issue, with Damascus demanding the full return of the region up to the shores of the Sea of Galilee.
Apple production is a major source of income for farmers in the Golan Heights, although its rocky terrain limits agricultural potential.
In the years before the 1967 war, the issue of water resources on the Golan was a major point of dispute between Israel and Syria.
clash
Israel and Syria are officially at war, though the ceasefire lines have been relatively quiet for decades.
Tensions have escalated as Lebanon’s Hezbollah armed group and Iran, two of Israel’s regional foes, draw closer to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime.
Since the Syrian war began in 2011, Israel has attacked its northern neighbour hundreds of times, mainly targeting army posts and Iran-backed fighters including Hezbollah.
But tensions escalated after a Hamas attack on southern Israel on October 7, triggering a war in the Gaza Strip.
Hamas’ ally Hezbollah, which has been engaged in regular cross-border firefights with Israeli forces since October 8, has fired rockets at the Golan Heights several times.
The Lebanese group says its attacks on Israel are in support of Hamas.
While Israel has evacuated most towns and villages along its border with Lebanon in the face of almost daily clashes, residents of the Golan Heights remain.
Twelve children and teenagers aged between 10 and 16 were killed by a Hezbollah rocket that hit the Druze town of Majdal Shams on Saturday, Israeli officials said.
Hezbollah, which claimed responsibility for several attacks on Israeli targets that day in retaliation for the deadly attack on southern Lebanon, has denied responsibility.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
