Quneitra Governorate

Last updated
Quneitra Governorate
مُحافظة القنيطرة (Arabic)
Governorate
Quneitra in Syria (sovereign+claimed).svg
Map of Syria with Quneitra Governorate highlighted
Syrian-held areas are on the right of the hatched UNDOF buffer zone; the rest is Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.
Coordinates(Quneitra): 33°07′34″N35°49′26″E / 33.126°N 35.824°E / 33.126; 35.824
Country Flag of the Syrian revolution.svg Syria
Control Israel [1]
Capital Quneitra (de jure)
Madinat al-Salam (de facto)
Area
 • Total
1,200 km2 (500 sq mi)
 Estimates range between 685 km2 and 1,861 km2
Population
 (2021) [2]
 • Total
105,124
 • Density88/km2 (230/sq mi)
Time zone UTC+2 (EET)
 • Summer (DST) UTC+3 (EEST)
ISO 3166 code SY-QU
Main language(s) Arabic

Quneitra Governorate [a] 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 [3] to 1,861 km2. [4] The governorate had a population of 87,000 at the 2010 estimate. [3] 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 Madinat al-Salam.

Contents

During the Syrian Civil War, most of the portions of the governorate that are not held by Israel were taken by various opposition and Jihadist forces. In the summer of 2018, the rebel-held areas in the governorate were retaken by the Syrian government.

Following the 2024 Syrian opposition offensives, the resurgent Southern Front declared full control over the governorate (excluding Israeli-controlled areas). Later, Israel advanced its troops into the buffer zone amid reports of artillery strikes on local villages.

History

The area surrounding Quneitra has been inhabited for millennia. Palaeolithic hunter-gatherers are thought to have lived there, as evidenced by the discovery of Levallois and Mousterian flint tools in the vicinity. [5] A settlement was established at least as early as the late Hellenistic period, [6] and continued through the Roman and Byzantine times; it was known by the name "Sarisai". [7] The settlement served as a stop on the road from Damascus to western Palestine. Saint Paul is said to have passed through the settlement on his way from Jerusalem to Damascus. The site of the Conversion of Paul was traditionally identified with the small village of Kokab, north-east of Quneitra, on the road to Damascus. [8]

The governorate was established in 1964 by the merger of Quneitra District, which belonged to Rif Dimashq Governorate and Fiq District which belonged to Daraa Governorate. [4] The reason for the establishment of this new governorate was the necessity to govern the Golan Heights as a single administrative unit due to its strategic and military importance along the borders with the newly established State of Israel.

Six-Day War

Most of the governorate was captured by Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War. The deserted city remained in Israeli hands for the next six years. However, Israel and Syria remained in a state of war throughout this period (and, indeed, to the present day). The town gained a fresh symbolic value; it was seen by the Syrians as "the badge of Syria's defeat, an emblem of hatred between Syria and Israel and a cross [Syrian President Hafez al-Assad] had to bear." [9]

Yom Kippur War

During the first few days of the Yom Kippur War in 1973, Quneitra was briefly recaptured by the Syrian Army before it was repulsed in an Israeli counter-offensive. [10] In the middle of October 1973 the Israeli counter-offensive started. The Syrians had massed nearly 1,000 tanks along a 100 km (60 mi) front. With a massive concentration of tanks, the Israelis lashed into the Syrian forces. The Syrians at first fell back, but then managed to counterattack and drive back into occupied territory. Quneitra changed hands several times. Finally, Israeli armored units, closely supported by Phantoms and Skyhawk fighter jets performing close air support with napalm strikes against the forward Syrian units, halted the Syrian drive and turned the Syrian Army back. [11]

Destruction of the city

A group of settlers from Merom Golan – a settlement established in 1967 – took over an abandoned bunker in Quneitra and declared it to be a new settlement called Keshet (Quneitra in Hebrew). The settlers also set about razing the existing town to the ground. The leader of Merom Golan, Yehuda Harel, and another Merom Golan member, Shimshon Wollner, initiated the destruction of Quneitra, which was carried out by the Land Development Administration of the Jewish National Fund. Harel later described what happened:

Shimshon and I walked around Quneitra all day and tried decide what to do. And then these two strange ideas came up. One was to establish a settlement in Quneitra and the second was to destroy Quneitra. [12]

Wollner and Harel asked the Jewish National Fund to carry out the work, ostensibly to prepare an area for agricultural cultivation, but were refused as they did not have permission from the Israeli army. They then approached the Assistant to the Head of Northern Command and asked him to mark on a map which buildings the army needed. According to Harel,

So he took a felt pen and marked the hospital and a few other places – he wrote "not for destruction" and on other places he wrote "for destruction" and he signed. He thought he was signing about what not to destroy but he was actually writing to destroy . . . The tractors of the Jewish National Fund did the destroying. They weren't our tractors . . . I can tell you that even the tractor drivers were Arabs. [12]

The buildings were systematically stripped, [13] with anything movable being removed and sold to Israeli contractors, before they were pulled apart with tractors and bulldozers. [14]

The disengagement went into force on 6 June. [15] On 26 June, the Syrian president Hafez al-Assad travelled to Quneitra where he pledged to return the rest of the occupied territories to Syrian control. [16] Western reporters accompanied Syrian refugees returning to the city in early July 1974 and described what they saw on the ground. Time magazine's correspondent reported that "Most of its buildings are knocked flat, as though by dynamite, or pockmarked by shellfire." [17] Le Monde's Syria correspondent, in a report for The Times , gave a detailed eyewitness description of the destruction:

Today the city is unrecognisable. The houses with their roofs lying on the ground look like gravestones. Parts of the rubble are covered with fresh earth furrowed by bulldozer tracks. Everywhere there are fragments of furniture, discarded kitchen utensils, Hebrew newspapers dating from the first week of June; here a ripped-up mattress, there the springs of an old sofa. On the few sections of wall still standing, Hebrew inscriptions proclaim: "There'll be another round"; "You want Quneitra, you'll have it destroyed." [18]

Israel asserted that most of the damage had been caused in the two wars and during the artillery duels in between. [19] [20] Several reports from before the withdrawal did refer to the city as "ruined" and "shell-scarred". [21] [22] [23] The Times' correspondent saw the city for himself on 6 May, a month before the Israeli withdrawal, and described it as being "in ruins and deserted after seven years of war and dereliction. It looks like a wild west city struck by an earthquake and if the Syrians get it back they will face a major feat of reconstruction. Nearly every building is heavily damaged and scores have collapsed." [24]

View of the destroyed city Qunaitra.jpg
View of the destroyed city

Direct evidence of the city's condition was provided when it was filmed on 12 May 1974 by a British television news team which included the veteran journalist Peter Snow, who was reporting for Independent Television News on the disengagement negotiations. His report was broadcast on ITN's News at Ten programme. According to The Times' correspondent Edward Mortimer, "viewers were thus afforded a panoramic view of the city, which had stood almost completely empty since the Syrian army evacuated it in 1967. It could be seen that many of the buildings were damaged, but most of them were still standing." After it was handed over, "very few buildings were left standing. Most of those destroyed did not present the jagged outline and random heaps of rubble usually produced by artillery or aerial bombardment. The roofs lay flat on the ground, 'pancaked' in a manner which I am told can only be achieved by systematic dynamiting of the support walls inside." Mortimer concluded that the footage "establishes beyond reasonable doubt that much of the destruction took place after 12 May—at a time when there was no fighting anywhere near Kuneitra." [25]

The United Nations established a Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices Affecting the Human Rights of the Population of the Occupied Territories, which engaged a Swiss engineer Edward Gruner to investigate the damage. [26] Gruner and a team of surveyors spent four months in Quneitra, documenting every building and its condition. [26] His report concluded that Israeli forces had deliberately destroyed the city prior to their withdrawal, including almost 4,000 buildings and a large amount of infrastructure, of value estimated at 463 million Syrian pounds. [26] The report's conclusions were subsequently adopted by the United Nations General Assembly. It passed a resolution on 29 November 1974 describing the destruction of Quneitra as "a grave breach of the [Fourth] Geneva Convention" and "condemn[ing] Israel for such acts," by a margin of 93 votes to 8, with 74 abstentions. [27] The United Nations Commission on Human Rights also voted to condemn the "deliberate destruction and devastation" of Quneitra in a resolution of 22 February 1975, by a margin of 22 votes to one (the United States) with nine abstentions. [28]

1990s

During negotiations with Israel on a peace agreements in the 1990s, Syria claimed the Israel–Syria demilitarised zone established under the 1949 Armistice Agreements as its territory, falling within the Quneitra Governorate. The Israeli government rejected the claims, as it would have led to Syria having territory west of the 1923 border between Mandatory Palestine and the French Mandate of Syria, which included Israeli kibbutzim established in the area before the Six-Day War.

Syrian Civil War

During the Syrian Civil War, by the autumn of 2014, most of the portions of the governorate that are not held by Israel, were captured by various opposition and jihadist forces, with only a small enclave remaining under pro-Ba'athist militias in the north. In June 2015, the rebels launched an offensive to capture the governorate, but were repelled by the Syrian Army. In October 2015, the rebels launched another offensive, which once again ended in a stalemate. Despite a semi-ceasefire set up by Russia and the US in September 2016, insurgents in the governorate declared a new offensive against the government forces there.

In June and July 2018, the rebel-held areas in the governorate was almost entirely retaken by the Syrian Army and its allies with Russian air support, with only a marginal part remaining at the hands of the ISIL-allied Khalid ibn al-Walid Army near the Jordanian border. The rebel groups of Ahrar al-Sham, Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham, Southern Front, Army of Islam, Criterion Brigades and Army of Free Tribes evacuated from the area to Idlib under an agreement with the Syrian government. In August 2018, Russia deployed its military police force to man several posts along the Bravo line of the buffer zone on the Golan Heights. [29] [30]

In early December 2024, the Southern Front which sprang up again following the offensives in the north, announced full control over Quneitra Governorate (the areas not under Israeli occupation). [31] [32] After the fall of the Assad regime on 8 December 2024, Israel launched an invasion into the governorate, advancing into the UNDOF buffer zone with claims of Israeli artillery strikes on local villages. [33] [34]

Districts

The governorate is divided into two districts (manatiq). The districts are further divided into six sub-districts (nawahi):

Demographics

Before the Six-Day War and Yom Kippur War, the Golan Heights comprised 312 inhabited areas, including 2 towns, 163 villages, and 108 farms. [35] In 1966, the Syrian population of the Golan Heights was estimated at 147,613. [36] Israel seized about 70% of the Golan Heights in the closing stages of the Six-Day War. [37] Many of these residents fled during the fighting, [38] or were driven out by the Israeli army, [39] and some were evacuated by the Syrian army. [39] A cease-fire line was established and large parts of the region came under Israeli military control, including the town of Quneitra, about 139 villages and 61 farms. [35] Of these, the Census of Population 1967 conducted by the Israeli Defence Forces listed only eight, including Quneitra. [35] One of the remaining populated villages, Shayta, was partially destroyed in 1967 and a military post built in its place. [40] Between 1971–72 it was destroyed completely, with the remaining population forcibly transferred to Mas'ade, another of the populated villages under Israeli control. [40] [41] : 7 

Prior to the 1967 Six-Day War, the population of Quneitra governorate was between 130,000 and 145,000, of which about 17,000 were Palestinian refugees. [42] The rural and urban population of Quneitra governorate consisted of Druze Arabs living in the north of the governorate, Circassians (descendants of refugees who fled their homeland in the North Caucasus during the Tsarist-Circassian genocide in the 19th century), Turkmens, Arab Alawites, Arab Sunni Fellahin and Bedouin. The urban population of the city of Quneitra included Isma'ili and Shi'a Muslim Arabs. [41] [43] Others had previously moved to the North Caucasus after the fall of the Soviet Union. [44] The Golan Heights was the principal concentration of Syrian Circassians in the entire country. [43]

The population of Syrian-ruled portions of Quneitra Governorate in 2021 was estimated to be 105,124. [2] Prior to the Syrian Civil war, about 8.5% of Palestinian refugees living in Syria, lived in Quneitra Governorate. [45] The total number of refugees and descendants from Israeli-occupied Golan Heights was estimated to be more than 350,000, mostly living in and around Damascus. [41] Israeli occupied Golan Subdistrict has a population of about 50,000, half of whom are Syrian Arab, and the other half are Israeli settlers living in settlements deemed illegal under international law.

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Quneitra</span> Place in Syria

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Golan Heights</span> Syrian territory occupied by Israel since 1967

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. It hosts vital water sources that feed the Hasbani River and the Jordan River. 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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fiq, Syria</span> Abandoned Syrian town in the Golan Heights

Fiq was a Syrian town in the Golan Heights that administratively belonged to Quneitra Governorate. It sat at an altitude of 349 meters (1,145 ft) and had a population of 2,800 in 1967. It was the administrative center of the Fiq District, the southern district of the Golan. Fiq was evacuated during and after the Six-Day War in June 1967. The Israeli settlement of Kibbutz Afik was built close by.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Districts of Syria</span> Administrative divisions of Syria

The 14 governorates of Syria, or muhafazat, are divided into 65 districts, or manatiq, including the city of Damascus. The districts are further divided into 281 subdistricts, or nawahi. Each district bears the same name as its district capital.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Beer Ajam</span> Village in Quneitra, Syria

Beer Ajam is a Syrian Circassian village in the Quneitra Governorate in the Syrian controlled portion of the Golan Heights. It has been inhabited for about 150 years. Its first houses were built in 1872. Nearby localities include Quneitra to the north, Naba al-Sakhr to the northeast, al-Harra to the east, Namer to the southeast and Bariqa to the south. According to the Syria Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS), Beer Ajam had a population of 353 in the 2004 census. Its inhabitants are Circassians from the Abadzekh and Kebertei tribes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Israel–Syria relations</span> Bilateral relations

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Syrian towns and villages depopulated in the Arab–Israeli conflict</span>

Before the Six-Day War and Yom Kippur War, the Golan Heights comprised 312 inhabited areas, including 2 towns, 163 villages, and 108 farms. In 1966, the Syrian population of the Golan Heights was estimated at 147,613. Israel seized about 70% of the Golan Heights in the closing stages of the Six-Day War. Many of these residents fled during the fighting, or were driven out by the Israeli army, and some were evacuated by the Syrian army. The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs in 1992 characterized Israel's actions as "ethnic cleansing".

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bariqa</span> Village in Quneitra, Syria

Bariqa is a village in southwestern Syria, administratively part of the Quneitra Governorate, south of Quneitra, in the Syrian-controlled portion of the Golan Heights. Nearby localities include Beer Ajam to the north, Naba al-Sakhr to the northeast, al-Harra and Namer to the east, al-Suwaysah and Jasim to the southeast and al-Rafid to the south. According to the Syria Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS), Bariqa had a population of 371 in the 2004 census. Its inhabitants are predominantly Circassians from the Abadzekh tribe, who profess Sunni Islam.

Khan Arnabah also spelt Khan Arnabeh is a town in southwestern Syria, administratively part of the Quneitra Governorate, in the portion of the province under Syrian control. The town is located just outside the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force Zone. Nearby localities include Sa'sa' to the northeast, Quneitra to the southwest, Jubata al-Khashab to the northwest, as well as the Circassian villages of Beer Ajam and Bariqa to the south. According to the Syria Central Bureau of Statistics, Khan Arnabah had a population of 7,375 at the 2004 census. The town is also the administrative centre of the Khan Arnabah nahiyah, which is made up of 19 towns having a combined population of 42,980.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Circassians in Syria</span> Branch of the Circassian diaspora in Syria

Circassians in Syria refer to the Circassian diaspora that settled in Syria in the 19th century. They moved to Syria after the Circassian genocide following the Russo-Circassian War. While they have become an increasingly assimilated part of Syrian society, they have maintained a distinct identity, having retained their language, their tribal heritage, and some of their other traditional customs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Israeli–Syrian ceasefire line incidents during the Syrian civil war</span> Incidents at the Israel–Syria ceasefire line since 2011

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2014 Quneitra offensive</span> Military operation

The 2014 Quneitra offensive, code-named “The Real Promise” or "Chargers of Dawn", was a military operation launched by Syrian rebels during the Syrian civil war in Quneitra Governorate, in an attempt to take control of several sections in the central part of the province and around Quneitra city "with the aim of opening the way to Damascus."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hader, Quneitra Governorate</span> Druze village in Syria

Hader is a village in southern Syria, administratively part of the Khan Arnabah Subdistrict of the Quneitra Governorate. It is in the portion of the governorate that is under de jure Syrian control, although it is currently occupied by the Israeli Defence Forces as a result of Operation Bashan Arrow. The town is located just outside the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force Zone. Nearby localities include Beit Jinn to the northeast, Harfa to the east, Jubata al-Khashab to the south, Majdal Shams in the Israeli Golan Heights to the west and Shebaa in Lebanon to the northwest.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Golan Regiment</span> Syrian loyalist militia

The Golan Regiment was a Syrian militia based in Khan Arnabah that was part of the National Defence Forces (NDF). Though primarily active in the Golan Heights, the unit has been deployed in various warzones of western Syria, fighting against many different Syrian opposition forces and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. The Golan Regiment was notable insofar as it was the first government unit during the Syrian civil war that was founded by Free Syrian Army (FSA) defectors.

The Quneitra offensive , code-named "Road to Damascus", was a military operation launched by rebel forces against the Syrian Arab Army at the town of Madinat al-Baath, in the Quneitra Governorate, during the Syrian Civil War.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nu'aym</span> Arab tribal confederation in Syria

The Nu'aym, also spelled Na'imeh, Na'im, Nu'im or Ne'im, are a large tribal confederation present in different parts of Syria. Their main concentration is in the Hauran and Golan Heights regions of southern Syria, with a significant presence in the suburbs of Damascus and the countryside of Homs, Idlib and Raqqa. The Nu'aym were one of the major Bedouin tribes in the plains around Homs and Hama and the Golan Heights throughout the Ottoman period.

Qabr Essit Camp (Arabic: مخيم قبر الست, or Sayyidah Zaynab camp, is a 0.02-square-kilometer refugee camp near the city of Sayyidah Zaynab, populated by Palestinians. It is located 14 kilometers from the center of Damascus. The pre-war population of the camp was around 23,700.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2024 Israeli invasion of Syria</span> Ongoing Israeli invasion in Syria

On 8 December 2024, Israel invaded the buffer zone between Syria and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, and carried out an aerial campaign targeting the Syrian Army's military capabilities, following the fall of the Assad regime. The invasion marked the first Israeli occupation of Syria in over 50 years, since the ceasefire agreements, which were established in the aftermath of the 1973 Yom Kippur War.

Asbah is a village in southern Syria, administratively part of the Quneitra Governorate, located west of Quneitra. According to the Syria Central Bureau of Statistics, Asbah had a population of 380 in the 2004 census. Its inhabitants are part of the Nu'aym, an Arab tribe based in the Golan Heights but with a presence in several parts of Syria.

References

  1. ↑
    • Arabic: مُحافظة القنيطرة, romanized: Muḥāfaẓat Al-Qunayṭrah
  1. ↑ "إعلام عبري: دخول بري "إسرائيلي" مع دبابات إلى القنيطرة السورية". factjo.com. 2024-12-08. Retrieved 2024-12-08.
  2. 1 2 “Quneitra.” European Union Agency for Asylum, 2021. Link.
  3. 1 2 "Syria: Governorates, Major Cities & Localities – Population Statistics, Maps, Charts, Weather and Web Information". www.citypopulation.de. Archived from the original on 2015-09-07. Retrieved 2006-10-14.
  4. 1 2 "Syria Provinces". www.statoids.com. Archived from the original on 2015-07-13. Retrieved 2006-10-14.
  5. ↑ Takeru Akazawa, Kenichi Aoki, Ofer Bar-Yosef, Neanderthals and Modern Humans in Western Asia, p. 154. Springer, 1998. ISBN   0-306-45924-8
  6. ↑ Dan Urman, Paul Virgil McCracken Flesher (1998). Ancient Synagogues: Historical Analysis and Archaeological Discovery. p. 395. ISBN   9004112545.
  7. ↑ Dan Urman, Paul Virgil McCracken Flesher (1998). Ancient Synagogues: Historical Analysis and Archaeological Discovery. p. 398. ISBN   9004112545.
  8. ↑ Ivan Mannheim, "Biblical Damascus", in Syria & Lebanon Handbook, p. 100. 2001, Footprint Travel Guides. ISBN   1-900949-90-3
  9. ↑ Seale, Patrick. (1988). Asad of Syria: The struggle for the Middle East (p. 141). Berkeley: University of California Press
  10. ↑ "Tables turned on Arabs, Israel general says". The Times, 9 October 1973, p. 8
  11. ↑ "The War of the Day of Judgment". Time Magazine. October 22, 1973. Archived from the original on December 14, 2008.
  12. 1 2 Kipnis, p. 160
  13. ↑ "Qunaytirah, Al-." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2007.
  14. ↑ Lara Dunston, Terry Carter, Andrew Humphreys. Syria & Lebanon, p. 129. Lonely Planet, 2004. ISBN   1-86450-333-5
  15. ↑ "Israel-Syrian disengagement goes into effect today after detailed plan is signed in Geneva". The Times, 6 June 1974, p. 6
  16. ↑ "Egypt offers air force to defend Lebanon". The Times, 26 June 1974, p. 6
  17. ↑ "Returning to Quneitra". Time Magazine. 8 July 1974. Archived from the original on March 13, 2007.
  18. ↑ "Golan's capital turns into heap of stones". The Times, 10 July 1974, p. 8
  19. ↑ "Israel fears Russian incitement of Arabs". The Times, 8 September 1975
  20. ↑ "Corrections". The New York Times. 9 May 2001. Archived from the original on 6 October 2021. Retrieved 28 December 2017.
  21. ↑ "Syrian 160mm mortar shells were falling on the northern side of the city, a shell-scarred ghost city since its capture by the Israelis in 1967". "Debris of two armies litters Damascus road". The Times, 5 October 1973
  22. ↑ "Kuneitra, the ruined capital of the Heights". "Village life on the wild frontier of the Golan". The Times, 5 April 1974
  23. ↑ "The officer conceded that the ruined city itself was of no military importance to Israel." "Israel sees no end to Golan battle". The Times, 2 May 1974.
  24. ↑ "Settlers insist Israel keeps Golan". The Times, 7 May 1974, p. 6
  25. ↑ "A question mark over the death of a city." The Times, 17 February 1975, p. 12
  26. 1 2 3 UN Secretary General: Report of the Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices Affecting the Human Rights of the Population of the Occupied Territories; including Edward Gruner: Quneitra Report on Nature, Extent and Value of Damage. A/31/218 Archived 2017-12-24 at the Wayback Machine 1 October 1976
  27. ↑ "Report of the Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices Affecting the Human Rights of the Population of the Occupied Territories Archived 2011-01-03 at the Wayback Machine ", United Nations General Assembly Resolution 3240, 29 November 1974, A/RES/3240, unispal .
  28. ↑ "Human Rights Commission condemns Israel". The Times, 22 February 1975
  29. ↑ Russian military police deploys four posts on Golan heights Archived 2018-10-23 at the Wayback Machine TASS, 14 August 2018.
  30. ↑ На Голанских высотах появились четыре поста российской военной полиции Archived 2018-08-15 at the Wayback Machine RIA Novosti, 14 August 2018.
  31. ↑ Reuters. "Syrian rebels say they have taken Quneitra, near border with Israel". www.timesofisrael.com. Retrieved 2024-12-08.{{cite web}}: |last= has generic name (help)
  32. ↑ "Syria govt forces evacuate positions in Quneitra near Israel-annexed Golan: Monitor". Al Arabiya English. 2024-12-07. Retrieved 2024-12-08.
  33. ↑ Fabian, Emanuel (8 December 2024). "IDF deploys in Golan buffer zone with Syria, girding for post-Assad regime chaos". Times of Israel. Retrieved 9 December 2024.
  34. ↑ Krever, Mick (8 December 2024). "Israel watches Syria with trepidation as 50 years of detente is upended". CNN. Retrieved 9 December 2024.
  35. 1 2 3 Davis, Uri (1983). "The Golan Heights under Israeli Occupation 1967–1981" (PDF).
  36. ↑ "Submission to UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination" (PDF). Al Marsad, the Arab Center for Human Rights in the Golan Heights. January 2007.
  37. ↑ Murphy & Gannon 2008, p. 24
  38. ↑ BBC News, Regions and territories: The Golan Heights
  39. 1 2 "Destroyed Villages in the Golan Heights". Archived from the original on 2012-02-18.
  40. 1 2 Murphy, Ray; Gannon, Declan (2008). "Changing the Landscape: Israel's Gross Violations of International Law in the Occupied Syrian Golan". Yearbook of International Humanitarian Law. 11. Cambridge University Press: 147. doi:10.1017/S1389135908001396.
  41. 1 2 3 Fakhr, Sakr Abu (July 2000). "Voices from the Golan". Journal of Palestine Studies. 29 (4). [Tarek Taha and Duha Abu Hijjleh]: 5–36. doi:10.2307/2676559. JSTOR   2676559.
  42. ↑ Fogelman, Shay. The disinherited, Haaretz, 30 July 2010. (90,000 according to Israeli sources and 115,000 according to Syrian sources, which included 17,000 Palestinian refugees registered with UNRWA, cited in the Report of the Secretary-General under General Assembly resolution 2252 (ES-V) and Security Council resolution 237 (1967) Archived 2 October 2013 at the Wayback Machine , pg. 14. 15 September 1967.)
  43. 1 2 Jaimoukha, Amjad. The Circassians of Syria: Opting for the Rightful Cause. Circassian Voices. July 2012.
  44. ↑ "How Circassians maintain identity in changing Golan". Al-Monitor. 9 February 2017. Retrieved 10 February 2017.
  45. ↑ Al- Mawed, Hamad Said. “The Palestinian Refugees in Syria Their Past ... .” McGill University, 1999. http://prrn.mcgill.ca/prrn/al-mawed.pdf .
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.