The Purple Line was the ceasefire line between Israel and Syria after the 1967 Six-Day War which serves as the de facto border between the two countries.
The Purple Line was the ceasefire line between Israel and Syria after the 1967 Six-Day War which serves as the de facto border between the two countries.
Syria gained independence from France in 1946 and on 14 May 1948, the British withdrew from Palestine as Israel declared its independence. Syrian forces participated in the 1948 Arab–Israeli War between Arab forces and the newly established State of Israel. In 1949, armistice agreements were signed and a provisional border between Syria and Israel was delineated (based on the 1923 international border; see San Remo conference ). Syrian and Israeli forces clashed on numerous occasions in the spring of 1951. The hostilities, which stemmed from Syrian opposition to an Israeli drainage project in the demilitarized zone, ceased on 15 May, after intercession by the United Nations Security Council.[ citation needed ]
In June 1967 after battling Syria, Jordan and Egypt in the Six-Day War, Israel captured the entire length of the Golan Heights including its principal city Quneitra. [1] The resulting ceasefire line (dubbed the "Purple Line" as it was drawn on the UN's maps)[ citation needed ] was supervised by a series of positions and observation posts manned by observers of the United Nations Truce Supervision Organization [2] and became the new effective border between Israel and Syria.[ citation needed ]
In a surprise attack consisting of a massive armored thrust, the Syrians crossed the Purple Line into the Golan Heights during the 1973 Yom Kippur War. After several days of very heavy fighting on the Golan they were pushed back deep into Syria and Israel conquered further territory inside Syria beyond the Purple Line by the time a ceasefire was reached. In the disengagements negotiations after the war, Israel and Syria agreed on 31 May 1974, to pull back their respective forces on the Golan Heights to the Purple Line. On the same day, a United Nations buffer zone was set up and the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force Zone (UNDOF) was established by the United Nations after the adoption of UN Security Council Resolution 350. [3] [4]
On 8 December 2024, following the fall of the Assad regime, Israel's armored units entered the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) buffer zone in between Syria and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, targeting the central countryside of the Quneitra Governorate with artillery fire. [5] [6] The operation marked the first time in over 50 years that Israeli forces had occupied the area, following ceasefire agreements on 31 May 1974 in the aftermath of the Yom Kippur War. [7]
After the fall of Damascus, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that since the Syrian Arab Army had abandoned its positions, the 1974 border agreement with Syria had collapsed, and that to prevent any possible threat, he ordered the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to temporarily take over the Purple Line, from which the IDF had withdrawn in 1974, until an agreement was reached with the new government in Syria. [8] [9] The Israeli Air Force and Navy concurrently began extensive strikes on military targets across Syria in an operation named Operation Bashan Arrow (Hebrew: מבצע חץ הבשן, romanized: Mivtza Hetz HaBashan). [10] [11]
Specific military objectives were given to the IDF by Defense Minister Israel Katz on 9 December, which included a complete takeover of the buffer zone and nearby positions, the creation of a security zone extending beyond the buffer zone free of heavy weaponry and military infrastructure, and the prevention of Iranian arms smuggling routes to Lebanon through Syria. [12]
Quneitra is the largely destroyed and abandoned capital of the Quneitra Governorate in south-western Syria. It is situated in a high valley in the Golan Heights at 1,010 metres (3,313 feet) above sea level. Since 1974, pursuant to United Nations Security Council Resolution 350 and the Agreement on Disengagement between Israel and Syria, the city is inside the UN-patrolled buffer zone.
The United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) is a United Nations peacekeeping mission tasked with maintaining the ceasefire between Israel and Syria in the aftermath of the 1973 Yom Kippur War. The mission was established by United Nations Security Council Resolution 350 on 31 May 1974, to implement Resolution 338 (1973) which called for an immediate ceasefire and implementation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 242.
Quneitra Governorate is one of the fourteen governorates (provinces) of Syria. It is situated in southern Syria, notable for the location of the Golan Heights. The governorate borders the countries of Lebanon, Jordan and Israel, and the Syrian governorates of Daraa and Rif Dimashq. Its area varies, according to different sources, from 685 km2 to 1,861 km2. The governorate had a population of 87,000 at the 2010 estimate. The nominal capital is the now abandoned city of Quneitra, destroyed by Israel before their withdrawal in June 1974 in the aftermath of the Yom Kippur War; since 1986, the de facto capital is Ba'ath City.
The Golan Heights, or simply the Golan, is a basaltic plateau at the southwest corner of Syria. It is bordered by the Yarmouk River in the south, the Sea of Galilee and Hula Valley in the west, the Anti-Lebanon mountains with Mount Hermon in the north and Wadi Raqqad in the east. Two thirds of the area was occupied by Israel following the 1967 Six-Day War and then effectively annexed in 1981 – an action unrecognized by the international community, which continues to consider it Israeli-occupied Syrian territory. In 2024 Israel occupied the remaining one third of the area.
The Quneitra Crossing is a border crossing through the purple ceasefire line into the UNDOF controlled area between the Syrian controlled and the Israeli-occupied portion of the Golan Heights. It is on the southwestern outskirts of Quneitra, and not far from the Israeli settlement of Ein Zivan in the Golan Heights. Syrian Druze from the Golan Heights are permitted to cross through the passage to study, work and live in Syria proper. The crossing is also used for the transfer of apples grown by Druze farmers under the auspices of the Red Cross. The only concrete guard post along the ceasefire line is at the Quneitra crossing.
Israel–Syria relations refer to the bilateral ties between the State of Israel and the Syrian Arab Republic. The two countries have been locked in a perpetual war since the establishment of Israel in 1948, with their most significant and direct armed engagements being in the First Arab–Israeli War in 1948–1949, the Third Arab–Israeli War in 1967, and the Fourth Arab–Israeli War in 1973. Additionally, Israeli and Syrian forces also saw relatively extensive combat against each other during the Lebanese Civil War, the 1982 Lebanon War, as well as the War of Attrition. Both states have at times signed and held armistice agreements, although all efforts to achieve complete peace have been without success. Syria has never recognized Israel as a legitimate state and does not accept Israeli passports as legally valid for entry into Syrian territory; Israel likewise regards Syria as a hostile state and generally prohibits its citizens from travelling there, with some exceptions and special accommodations being made by both countries for Druze people residing in Syria and the Golan Heights. Israel and Syria have never established formal diplomatic relations since the inception of both countries in the mid-20th century.
United Nations Security Council resolution 1024, adopted unanimously on 28 November 1995, after considering a report by the Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali regarding the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF), the Council noted its efforts to establish a durable and just peace in the Middle East.
United Nations Security Council resolution 1057, adopted unanimously on 30 May 1996, after considering a report by the Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali regarding the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF), the Council noted its efforts to establish a durable and just peace in the Middle East.
United Nations Security Council Resolution 1934, adopted unanimously on June 30, 2010, after considering a report by the Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon regarding the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF), the Council extended its mandate for a further six months until December 31, 2010.
United Nations Security Council Resolution 1994, adopted unanimously on 30 June 2011, after considering a report by the Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon regarding the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF), the Council extended its mandate for a further six months until 31 December 2011.
The 2012–2014 Quneitra Governorate clashes began in early November 2012, when the Syrian Army began engaging with rebels in several towns and villages of the Quneitra Governorate. The clashes quickly intensified and spilled into the UN-supervised neutral demilitarized zone between Syrian controlled territory and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.
The Agreement on Disengagement between Israel and Syria, which was signed on May 31, 1974, officially ended the Yom Kippur War and the subsequent attrition period on the Syrian front. Following the fall of the Assad regime, Israel "considered the agreement void until order is restored in Syria", leading to the 2024 Israeli invasion of Syria.
Several incidents have taken place on the Israeli–Syrian ceasefire line during the Syrian Civil War, straining the relations between the countries. The incidents are considered a spillover of the Quneitra Governorate clashes since 2012 and later incidents between Syrian Army and the rebels, ongoing on the Syrian-controlled side of the Golan and the Golan Neutral Zone and the Hezbollah involvement in the Syrian Civil War. Through the incidents, which began in late 2012, as of mid-2014, one Israeli civilian was killed and at least 4 soldiers wounded; on the Syrian-controlled side, it is estimated that at least ten soldiers were killed, as well as two unidentified militants, who were identified near Ein Zivan on Golan Heights.
Since the beginning of the Syrian civil war in March 2011, the official position of Israel has been that of strict neutrality. However, due to the Iranian intervention in the conflict, which began in 2013, it has become involved both politically and militarily in attempts to prevent the growing influence and entrenchment of Iranian troops and proxies throughout Syria. Dubbed Operation Chess, Israeli military activity in Syria has primarily been limited to aerial and missile strikes targeting facilities used by Iran and its proxy forces, especially Hezbollah, which entered Syria from Lebanon shortly after the outbreak of the conflict. Before 2017, Israel did not officially acknowledge any of its operations within Syria, many of which have consisted of airstrikes to disrupt weapons shipments to Hezbollah personnel. By August 2022, the British investigative non-profit organization Airwars estimated that 17 to 45 civilians were killed and another 42 to 101 civilians were wounded by Israeli airstrikes in Syria since 2013; Syrian reports place these figures much lower than other foreign actors in the conflict. Between 2013 and September 2018, Israel also provided humanitarian aid to victims of the Syrian civil war, especially following the launching of Operation Good Neighbour in June 2016.
The Golan Heights are a rocky plateau in the Levant region of Western Asia that was captured by Israel from Syria in the 1967 Six-Day War. The international community, with the exception of Israel and the United States, considers the Golan Heights to be Syrian territory held by Israel under military occupation. Following the war, Syria dismissed any negotiations with Israel as part of the Khartoum Resolution.
The Bashan Salient was a territory in Southwestern Syria which was conquered by the Israeli Army during the 1973 Yom Kippur War. The salient was about twenty kilometres wide and encompassed an area of approximately 400 km2, extending to a point 33 kilometres from the Syrian capital of Damascus. The Salient was evacuated by the Israeli army shortly after the signing of a disengagement agreement between the Israeli and Syrian forces on May 31, 1974. The Salient included the summit of Mount Hermon, the town of Beit Jinn, and many other Syrian villages.
The War of Attrition in the Bashan Salient was an armed conflict between Israel and Syria in the Bashan Salient from March through May of 1974. The region was conquered by the Israeli army (IDF) at the end of the Yom Kippur War in October of 1973, and held by Israeli forces until the signing of the disengagement agreement on May 31, 1974.
The spillover of the Israel–Hamas war in Syria is the impact and military engagements in Syria which are caused by the spillover of the Israel–Hamas war, and constitute a part of the ongoing Middle Eastern crisis. The conflict, originating in the Gaza Strip, has triggered regional tensions and violence, drawing Syria in through direct and indirect confrontations involving Israeli forces, Syrian state actors, and armed groups operating in Syrian territory.
Beginning on 29 November 2024, southern Syrian opposition groups began assaults on Daraa Governorate and As-Suwayda Governorate in Southern Syria, along the nation's border with Jordan. The offensive was publicly announced as a coordinated effort with the Northwestern Syria offensive to implement a multi-front advance toward Damascus. The Syrian Armed Forces withdrew from their positions around the city of Daraa to reinforce Damascus.
On 8 December 2024, following the fall of the Assad regime, Israel's armored units entered the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) buffer zone in between Syria and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, targeting the central countryside of the Quneitra Governorate with artillery fire. The operation marked the first time in over 50 years that Israeli forces had occupied the area, following ceasefire agreements on 31 May 1974 in the aftermath of the Yom Kippur War.
The name of the operation to destroy the former Assad regime army's weapons is dubbed "Bashan Arrow" within the military, after the biblical name for the region in the Golan Heights and southern Syria.
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