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The Golan Heights, or simply the Golan, is a basaltic
plateau In geology and physical geography, a plateau (; ; : plateaus or plateaux), also called a high plain or a tableland, is an area of a highland consisting of flat terrain that is raised sharply above the surrounding area on at least one side. ...
at the southwest corner of
Syria Syria, officially the Syrian Arab Republic, is a country in West Asia located in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Levant. It borders the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Turkey to Syria–Turkey border, the north, Iraq to Iraq–Syria border, t ...
. It is bordered by the Yarmouk River in the south, the
Sea of Galilee The Sea of Galilee (, Judeo-Aramaic languages, Judeo-Aramaic: יַמּא דטבריא, גִּנֵּיסַר, ), also called Lake Tiberias, Genezareth Lake or Kinneret, is a freshwater lake in Israel. It is the lowest freshwater lake on Earth ...
and Hula Valley in the west, the Anti-Lebanon mountains with
Mount Hermon Mount Hermon ( / ALA-LC: ('Mountain of the Sheikh', ), , ) is a mountain, mountain cluster constituting the southern end of the Anti-Lebanon mountain range. Its summit straddles the Lebanon–Syria border, border between Syria and Lebanon a ...
in the north and Wadi Raqqad in the east. It hosts vital water sources that feed the Hasbani River and the
Jordan River The Jordan River or River Jordan (, ''Nahr al-ʾUrdunn''; , ''Nəhar hayYardēn''), also known as ''Nahr Al-Sharieat'' (), is a endorheic river in the Levant that flows roughly north to south through the Sea of Galilee and drains to the Dead ...
. Two thirds of the area was occupied by
Israel Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...
following the 1967
Six-Day War The Six-Day War, also known as the June War, 1967 Arab–Israeli War or Third Arab–Israeli War, was fought between Israel and a coalition of Arab world, Arab states, primarily United Arab Republic, Egypt, Syria, and Jordan from 5 to 10June ...
and then effectively annexed in 1981 – an action unrecognized by the
international community The international community is a term used in geopolitics and international relations to refer to a broad group of people and governments of the world. Usage Aside from its use as a general descriptor, the term is typically used to imply the ...
, which continues to consider it Israeli-occupied Syrian territory. In 2024, Israel occupied the remaining one third of the area. The earliest evidence of human habitation on the Golan dates to the
Upper Paleolithic The Upper Paleolithic (or Upper Palaeolithic) is the third and last subdivision of the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age. Very broadly, it dates to between 50,000 and 12,000 years ago (the beginning of the Holocene), according to some theories ...
period. It was home to the biblical Geshur, and was later incorporated into
Aram-Damascus Aram-Damascus ( ) was an Arameans, Aramean polity that existed from the late-12th century BCE until 732 BCE, and was centred around the city of Damascus in the Southern Levant. Alongside various tribal lands, it was bounded in its later years b ...
,Michael Avi-Yonah (1979). ''The Holy Land – from the Persian to the Arab Conquests (536 B.C. to A.D. 640) A Historical Geography'', Grand Rapids, Michigan, p. 170 before being ruled by several foreign and domestic powers, including the
Assyria Assyria (Neo-Assyrian cuneiform: , ''māt Aššur'') was a major ancient Mesopotamian civilization that existed as a city-state from the 21st century BC to the 14th century BC and eventually expanded into an empire from the 14th century BC t ...
ns,
Babylonia Babylonia (; , ) was an Ancient history, ancient Akkadian language, Akkadian-speaking state and cultural area based in the city of Babylon in central-southern Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq and parts of Kuwait, Syria and Iran). It emerged as a ...
ns, Persians,HaReuveni, Immanuel (1999). ''Lexicon of the Land of Israel'' (in Hebrew). Miskal – Yedioth Ahronoth Books and Chemed Books. pp. 662–663 .Vitto, Fanny, ''Ancient Synagogue at Rehov'', Israel Antiquities Authority, Jerusalem 1974
Iturea Iturea or Ituraea (, ''Itouraía'') is the Greek name of a Levantine region north of Galilee during the Late Hellenistic and early Roman periods. It extended from Mount Lebanon across the plain of Marsyas to the Anti-Lebanon Mountains in Syri ...
ns, Hasmoneans, Romans, p. 4 "Scholarly consensus holds that the Golan became populated by Jews ''following'' the conquests of Jannaeus in c. 80 BCE and as a direct result of these conquests."
Ghassanids The Ghassanids, also known as the Jafnids, were an Tribes of Arabia, Arab tribe. Originally from South Arabia, they migrated to the Levant in the 3rd century and established what would eventually become a Christian state, Christian kingdom unde ...
, several
caliphate A caliphate ( ) is an institution or public office under the leadership of an Islamic steward with Khalifa, the title of caliph (; , ), a person considered a political–religious successor to the Islamic prophet Muhammad and a leader of ...
s, and the
Mamluk Sultanate The Mamluk Sultanate (), also known as Mamluk Egypt or the Mamluk Empire, was a state that ruled Egypt, the Levant and the Hejaz from the mid-13th to early 16th centuries, with Cairo as its capital. It was ruled by a military caste of mamluks ...
. It was ruled by the
Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire (), also called the Turkish Empire, was an empire, imperial realm that controlled much of Southeast Europe, West Asia, and North Africa from the 14th to early 20th centuries; it also controlled parts of southeastern Centr ...
from the 16th century until its collapse, and subsequently became part of the French Mandate in Syria and the State of Damascus in 1923. When the mandate terminated in 1946, it became part of the newly independent
Syrian Arab Republic Syria, officially the Syrian Arab Republic, is a country in West Asia located in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Levant. It borders the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Turkey to Syria–Turkey border, the north, Iraq to Iraq–Syria border, t ...
, spanning about . After the Six-Day War of 1967, the Golan Heights was occupied and administered by Israel. Following the war, Syria dismissed any negotiations with Israel as part of the
Khartoum Resolution The Khartoum Resolution () of 1 September 1967 was issued at the conclusion of the 1967 Arab League summit, which was convened in Khartoum, the capital of Republic of the Sudan (1956–1969), Sudan, in the wake of the Six-Day War. The resoluti ...
at the
1967 Arab League summit The 1967 Arab League summit was held on August 29 in Khartoum as the fourth Arab League Summit in the aftermath of the Arab defeat by Israel in the Six-Day War, and is famous for its Khartoum Resolution known as "The Three No's"; No peace with Is ...
. Civil administration of a third of the Golan heights, including the capital Quneitra, was restored to Syria in a disengagement agreement the year after the 1973
Yom Kippur War The Yom Kippur War, also known as the Ramadan War, the October War, the 1973 Arab–Israeli War, or the Fourth Arab–Israeli War, was fought from 6 to 25 October 1973 between Israel and a coalition of Arab world, Arab states led by Egypt and S ...
. Construction of
Israeli settlement Israeli settlements, also called Israeli colonies, are the civilian communities built by Israel throughout the Israeli-occupied territories. They are populated by Israeli citizens, almost exclusively of Israeli Jews, Jewish identity or ethni ...
s began in the territory held by Israel, which was under a military administration until the
Knesset The Knesset ( , ) is the Unicameralism, unicameral legislature of Israel. The Knesset passes all laws, elects the President of Israel, president and Prime Minister of Israel, prime minister, approves the Cabinet of Israel, cabinet, and supe ...
passed the Golan Heights Law in 1981, which applied Israeli law to the territory; this move has been described as an
annexation Annexation, in international law, is the forcible acquisition and assertion of legal title over one state's territory by another state, usually following military occupation of the territory. In current international law, it is generally held t ...
and was condemned by the
United Nations Security Council The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations (UN) and is charged with ensuring international peace and security, recommending the admission of new UN members to the General Assembly, an ...
in Resolution 497. After the onset of the Syrian civil war in 2011, control of the Syrian-administered part of the Golan Heights was split between the
state government A state government is the government that controls a subdivision of a country in a federal form of government, which shares political power with the federal or national government. A state government may have some level of political autonom ...
and Syrian opposition forces, with the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) maintaining a
buffer zone A buffer zone, also historically known as a march, is a neutral area that lies between two or more bodies of land; usually, between countries. Depending on the type of buffer zone, it may serve to separate regions or conjoin them. Common types o ...
in between to help implement the Israeli–Syrian ceasefire across the Purple Line. From 2012 to 2018, the eastern half of the Golan Heights became a scene of repeated battles between the Syrian Army, rebel factions of the Syrian opposition (including the Southern Front) as well as various
jihadist Jihadism is a neologism for modern, armed militant Political aspects of Islam, Islamic movements that seek to Islamic state, establish states based on Islamic principles. In a narrower sense, it refers to the belief that armed confrontation ...
organizations such as
al-Nusra Front Al-Nusra Front or Jabhat al-Nusra or Jabhat Nusrat Ahl al-Sham, also known as Front for the Conquest of the Levant, and also later known as Jabhat Fatah al-Sham was a Salafi-jihadist organization that fought against Ba'athist Syria, Ba'athist ...
and the Khalid ibn al-Walid Army. In July 2018, the Syrian government regained full control over the eastern Golan Heights. After the
fall of the Assad regime On 8 December 2024, the Assad regime collapsed during a 2024 Syrian opposition offensives, major offensive by Syrian opposition, opposition forces. The offensive was spearheaded by Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and supported mainly by the Turk ...
in December 2024, Israel occupied the rest of the Golan Heights as a "temporary defensive position", followed by two additional Syrian villages, Jamlah and Maaraba.


Etymology

In the Bible, ''
Golan Golan (; ) is the name of a biblical town later known from the works of Josephus (first century CE) and Eusebius (''Onomasticon'', early 4th century CE). Archaeologists localize the biblical city of Golan at Sahm el-Jaulān, a Syrian village eas ...
'' is mentioned as a city of refuge located in
Bashan Bashan (; ; or ''Basanitis'') is the ancient, biblical name used for the northernmost region of Transjordan during the Iron Age. It is situated in modern-day Jordan and Syria. Its western part, nowadays known as the Golan Heights, was occupied b ...
:
Deuteronomy Deuteronomy (; ) is the fifth book of the Torah (in Judaism), where it is called () which makes it the fifth book of the Hebrew Bible and Christian Old Testament. Chapters 1–30 of the book consist of three sermons or speeches delivered to ...
4:43, Joshua 20:8 and 1 Chronicles 6:71. Nineteenth-century authors interpreted the word as meaning "something ''surrounded'', hence a ''district''"."Ancient faiths embodied in ancient names: or, An attempt to trace the religious belief ... of certain nations", by Thomas Inman, 1872 History, page 551 The shift in the meaning of Golan, from a town to a broader district or territory, is first attested by the Jewish historian
Josephus Flavius Josephus (; , ; ), born Yosef ben Mattityahu (), was a Roman–Jewish historian and military leader. Best known for writing '' The Jewish War'', he was born in Jerusalem—then part of the Roman province of Judea—to a father of pr ...
. His account likely reflects Roman administrative changes implemented after the Great Jewish Revolt (66–73 CE). The
Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...
name for the region is (). In the
Mishnah The Mishnah or the Mishna (; , from the verb ''šānā'', "to study and review", also "secondary") is the first written collection of the Jewish oral traditions that are known as the Oral Torah. Having been collected in the 3rd century CE, it is ...
the name is similar to
Aramaic language Aramaic (; ) is a Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic language that originated in the ancient Syria (region), region of Syria and quickly spread to Mesopotamia, the southern Levant, Sinai Peninsula, Sinai, Southeastern Anatolia Regi ...
names for the region: , and . The
Arabic Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...
name is , sometimes romanized as , which is an Arabized version of the Canaanite and
Hebrew Hebrew (; ''ʿÎbrit'') is a Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family. A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages, it was natively spoken by the Israelites and ...
name. Arab cartographers of the
Byzantine The Byzantine Empire, also known as the Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire centred on Constantinople during late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Having survived the events that caused the fall of the Western Roman E ...
period referred to the area as (, 'mountain'), though the region is a plateau. The name ''Golan Heights'' was not used before the 19th century.


History


Early history

The Venus of Berekhat Ram, a pebble from the
Lower Paleolithic The Lower Paleolithic (or Lower Palaeolithic) is the earliest subdivision of the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age. It spans the time from around 3.3 million years ago when the first evidence for stone tool production and use by hominins appears ...
era found in the Golan Heights, may have been carved by ''
Homo erectus ''Homo erectus'' ( ) is an extinction, extinct species of Homo, archaic human from the Pleistocene, spanning nearly 2 million years. It is the first human species to evolve a humanlike body plan and human gait, gait, to early expansions of h ...
'' between 700,000 and 230,000 BC. The southern Golan saw a rise in settlements from the 2nd millennium BCE onwards. These were small settlements located on the slopes overlooking the Sea of Galilee or nearby gorges. They may correspond to the "''cities of the Land of Ga uu" mentioned in Amarna Letter #256.5, written by the prince of Pihilu (
Pella Pella () is an ancient city located in Central Macedonia, Greece. It served as the capital of the Ancient Greece, ancient Greek kingdom of Macedonia (ancient kingdom), Macedon. Currently, it is located 1 km outside the modern town of Pella ...
). This suggests a different form of political organization compared to the prevalent city-states of the region, such as Hatzor to the west and Ashteroth to the east. The Golan had numerous settlements in the Middle Bronze Age until they were largely destroyed by Egyptian Pharaoh
Thutmose III Thutmose III (variously also spelt Tuthmosis or Thothmes), sometimes called Thutmose the Great, (1479–1425 BC) was the fifth pharaoh of the 18th Dynasty of Egypt. He is regarded as one of the greatest warriors, military commanders, and milita ...
in the mid 2nd millennium BCE. Following this the level of habitation in the area decreased. Following the
Late Bronze Age collapse The Late Bronze Age collapse was a period of societal collapse in the Mediterranean basin during the 12th century BC. It is thought to have affected much of the Eastern Mediterranean and Near East, in particular Egypt, Anatolia, the Aegea ...
, the Golan was home to the newly formed kingdom of Geshur, likely a continuation of the earlier "''Land of Garu''". The
Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
. '' David David (; , "beloved one") was a king of ancient Israel and Judah and the third king of the United Monarchy, according to the Hebrew Bible and Old Testament. The Tel Dan stele, an Aramaic-inscribed stone erected by a king of Aram-Dam ...
(10th century BC). David's marriage to Maacha, daughter of King Talmai of Geshur, supports a dynastic alliance with Israel. However, by the mid-9th century BC,
Aram-Damascus Aram-Damascus ( ) was an Arameans, Aramean polity that existed from the late-12th century BCE until 732 BCE, and was centred around the city of Damascus in the Southern Levant. Alongside various tribal lands, it was bounded in its later years b ...
absorbed Geshur into its expanding territory. Aram-Damascus' rivalry with the Kingdom of Israel led to numerous military clashes in the Golan and Gilead regions throughout the 9th and 8th centuries BC. The Bible recounts two Israelite victories at Aphek, a location possibly corresponding to the modern-day Afik, near the Sea of Galilee. During the 8th century BC, the
Assyrians Assyrians (, ) are an ethnic group indigenous to Mesopotamia, a geographical region in West Asia. Modern Assyrians share descent directly from the ancient Assyrians, one of the key civilizations of Mesopotamia. While they are distinct from ot ...
conquered the region, incorporating it into the province of Qarnayim, likely including
Damascus Damascus ( , ; ) is the capital and List of largest cities in the Levant region by population, largest city of Syria. It is the oldest capital in the world and, according to some, the fourth Holiest sites in Islam, holiest city in Islam. Kno ...
as well. This period was succeeded by the Babylonian and the
Achaemenid Empire The Achaemenid Empire or Achaemenian Empire, also known as the Persian Empire or First Persian Empire (; , , ), was an Iranian peoples, Iranian empire founded by Cyrus the Great of the Achaemenid dynasty in 550 BC. Based in modern-day Iran, i ...
. In the 5th century BC, the Achaemenid Empire allowed the region to be resettled by returning Jewish exiles from the
Babylonian Captivity The Babylonian captivity or Babylonian exile was the period in Jewish history during which a large number of Judeans from the ancient Kingdom of Judah were forcibly relocated to Babylonia by the Neo-Babylonian Empire. The deportations occurred ...
, a fact that has been noted in the
Mosaic of Rehob The Mosaic of Reḥob (, also known as the Tel Rehov inscription and the Baraita of the Boundaries), is a late 3rd–6th century Common Era, CE mosaic discovered in 1973. The mosaic, written in late Mishnaic Hebrew, describes the geography and ...
. After the Assyrian period, about four centuries provide limited archaeological finds in the Golan.


Hellenistic and early Roman periods

The Golan Heights, along with the rest of the region, came under the control of
Alexander the Great Alexander III of Macedon (; 20/21 July 356 BC – 10/11 June 323 BC), most commonly known as Alexander the Great, was a king of the Ancient Greece, ancient Greek kingdom of Macedonia (ancient kingdom), Macedon. He succeeded his father Philip ...
in 332 BC, following the
Battle of Issus The Battle of Issus (also Issos) occurred in southern Anatolia, on 5 November 333 BC between the League of Corinth, Hellenic League led by Alexander the Great and the Achaemenid Empire, led by Darius III of Persia, Darius III. It was the second g ...
. Following Alexander's death, the Golan came under the domination of the Macedonian general
Seleucus Seleucus or Seleukos (Ancient Greek: Σέλευκος) was a Macedonia (ancient kingdom), Macedonian Greek name, possibly meaning "very bright" or “very white”. It is likely related to the ancient name Zaleucus (Ancient Greek language, Ancient ...
and remained part of the
Seleucid Empire The Seleucid Empire ( ) was a Greek state in West Asia during the Hellenistic period. It was founded in 312 BC by the Macedonian general Seleucus I Nicator, following the division of the Macedonian Empire founded by Alexander the Great ...
for most of the next two centuries. In the middle of the 2nd century BC,
Iturea Iturea or Ituraea (, ''Itouraía'') is the Greek name of a Levantine region north of Galilee during the Late Hellenistic and early Roman periods. It extended from Mount Lebanon across the plain of Marsyas to the Anti-Lebanon Mountains in Syri ...
ns moved into the Golan, occupying over one hundred locations in the region. Iturean stones and pottery have been found in the area. Itureans also built several temples, one of them in function up until the Islamic conquest. Around 83–81 BC, the Golan was captured by the Hasmonean king and high priest
Alexander Jannaeus Alexander Jannaeus ( , English: "Alexander Jannaios", usually Latinised to "Alexander Jannaeus"; ''Yannaʾy''; born Jonathan ) was the second king of the Hasmonean dynasty, who ruled over an expanding kingdom of Judaea from 103 to 76 BCE. ...
, annexing the area to the Hasmonean kingdom of Judaea. Following this conquest, the Hasmoneans encouraged Jewish migrants from
Judea Judea or Judaea (; ; , ; ) is a mountainous region of the Levant. Traditionally dominated by the city of Jerusalem, it is now part of Palestine and Israel. The name's usage is historic, having been used in antiquity and still into the pres ...
to settle in the Golan. Most scholars agree that this settlement began after the Hasmonean conquest, though it might have started earlier, probably in the mid-2nd century BC. Over the next century, Jewish settlement in the Golan and nearby regions became widespread, reaching north to
Damascus Damascus ( , ; ) is the capital and List of largest cities in the Levant region by population, largest city of Syria. It is the oldest capital in the world and, according to some, the fourth Holiest sites in Islam, holiest city in Islam. Kno ...
and east to Naveh. When
Herod the Great Herod I or Herod the Great () was a History of the Jews in the Roman Empire, Roman Jewish client king of the Herodian kingdom of Judea. He is known for his colossal building projects throughout Judea. Among these works are the rebuilding of the ...
ascended to power in Judaea during the latter half of the first century BC, the region as far as
Trachonitis The Lajat (/ALA-LC: ''al-Lajāʾ''), also spelled ''Lejat'', ''Lajah'', ''el-Leja'' or ''Laja'', is the largest lava field in southern Syria, spanning some 900 square kilometers. Located about southeast of Damascus, the Lajat borders the Haura ...
,
Batanea Batanaea or Batanea was an area often mentioned between the first century BCE and the fourth century CE. It is often mixed with the biblical Bashan, the part of the Biblical Holy Land, northeast of the Jordan River, as its Latinized form. Bash ...
and Auranitis was put under his control by
Augustus Caesar Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus (born Gaius Octavius; 23 September 63 BC – 19 August AD 14), also known as Octavian (), was the founder of the Roman Empire, who reigned as the first Roman emperor from 27 BC until his death in A ...
. Following the death of Herod the Great in 4 BC, Augustus Caesar adjudicated that the Golan fell within the
Tetrarchy The Tetrarchy was the system instituted by Roman emperor Diocletian in 293 AD to govern the ancient Roman Empire by dividing it between two emperors, the ''augusti'', and their junior colleagues and designated successors, the ''caesares''. I ...
of Herod's son, Herod Philip I. The capital of Jewish Galaunitis, Gamla, was a prominent city and major stronghold. It housed one of the earliest known
synagogue A synagogue, also called a shul or a temple, is a place of worship for Jews and Samaritans. It is a place for prayer (the main sanctuary and sometimes smaller chapels) where Jews attend religious services or special ceremonies such as wed ...
s, believed to have been constructed in the late 1st century BC, when the
Temple in Jerusalem The Temple in Jerusalem, or alternatively the Holy Temple (; , ), refers to the two religious structures that served as the central places of worship for Israelites and Jews on the modern-day Temple Mount in the Old City of Jerusalem. Accord ...
was still standing. After Philip's death in 34 AD, the Romans absorbed the Golan into the province of
Syria Syria, officially the Syrian Arab Republic, is a country in West Asia located in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Levant. It borders the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Turkey to Syria–Turkey border, the north, Iraq to Iraq–Syria border, t ...
, but
Caligula Gaius Caesar Augustus Germanicus (31 August 12 – 24 January 41), also called Gaius and Caligula (), was Roman emperor from AD 37 until his assassination in 41. He was the son of the Roman general Germanicus and Augustus' granddaughter Ag ...
restored the territory to Herod's grandson Agrippa in 37. Following Agrippa's death in 44, the Romans again annexed the Golan to Syria, promptly to return it again when
Claudius Tiberius Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus ( ; ; 1 August 10 BC – 13 October AD 54), or Claudius, was a Roman emperor, ruling from AD 41 to 54. A member of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, Claudius was born to Nero Claudius Drusus, Drusus and Ant ...
traded the Golan to Agrippa II, the son of Agrippa I, in 51 as part of a land swap. By the time of the Great Jewish revolt, which began in 66 AD, part of the Golan Heights was predominantly inhabited by Jews.
Josephus Flavius Josephus (; , ; ), born Yosef ben Mattityahu (), was a Roman–Jewish historian and military leader. Best known for writing '' The Jewish War'', he was born in Jerusalem—then part of the Roman province of Judea—to a father of pr ...
depicts the western and central Golan as densely populated with cities that emerged on fertile stony soil. Despite nominally being under Agrippa's control and situated outside the province of Judaea, the Jewish communities in the area participated in the revolt. Initially, Gamla was loyal to Rome, but later the town switched allegiance and even minted its own revolt coins. Josephus, who was appointed by the
provisional government A provisional government, also called an interim government, an emergency government, a transitional government or provisional leadership, is a temporary government formed to manage a period of transition, often following state collapse, revoluti ...
in
Jerusalem Jerusalem is a city in the Southern Levant, on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest cities in the world, and ...
as commander of Galilee, fortified the cities of Sogana, Seleucia, and Gamla in the Golan. The Roman military, under
Vespasian Vespasian (; ; 17 November AD 9 – 23 June 79) was Roman emperor from 69 to 79. The last emperor to reign in the Year of the Four Emperors, he founded the Flavian dynasty, which ruled the Empire for 27 years. His fiscal reforms and consolida ...
's command, eventually ended the northern revolt in 67 AD by capturing Gamla after a siege. Josephus reports that the people of Gamla opted for
mass suicide Mass suicide is a form of suicide, occurring when a group of people simultaneously kill themselves. Mass suicide sometimes occurs in religious settings. In war, defeated groups may resort to mass suicide rather than being captured. Suicide pacts ...
, throwing themselves into a ravine. Today, the visible breach in the wall near the synagogue, along with remnants such as fortress walls, tower ruins, armor fragments, various projectiles, and fire damage, testify to the siege's intensity. Following the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD, many Jews fled north to Galilee and the Golan, further increasing the Jewish population in the region. Another notable surge in Jewish migration to the Golan took place in the aftermath of the
Bar Kokhba revolt The Bar Kokhba revolt (132–136 AD) was a major uprising by the Jews of Judaea (Roman province), Judaea against the Roman Empire, marking the final and most devastating of the Jewish–Roman wars. Led by Simon bar Kokhba, the rebels succeeded ...
, c. 135 AD. During this time, Jews remained a minority of the population in the Golan.


Late Roman and Byzantine periods

In the later Roman and
Byzantine The Byzantine Empire, also known as the Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire centred on Constantinople during late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Having survived the events that caused the fall of the Western Roman E ...
periods, the area was administered as part of Phoenicia Prima and
Syria Palaestina Syria Palaestina ( ) was the renamed Roman province formerly known as Judaea, following the Roman suppression of the Bar Kokhba revolt, in what then became known as the Palestine region between the early 2nd and late 4th centuries AD. The pr ...
, and finally Golan/Gaulanitis was included together with
Peraea Peraia, and Peraea or Peræa (from , ''hē peraia'', "land across") in Classical Antiquity referred to "a community's territory lying 'opposite', predominantly (but not exclusively) a mainland possession of an island state" according to Karl-Wilhe ...
in
Palaestina Secunda Palaestina Secunda or Palaestina II was a province of the Byzantine Empire from 390, until its conquest by the Muslim armies in 634–636. Palaestina Secunda, a part of the Diocese of the East, roughly comprised inland Galilee, the Jezreel Valley ...
, after 218 AD. The area of the ancient kingdom of Bashan was incorporated into the province of
Batanea Batanaea or Batanea was an area often mentioned between the first century BCE and the fourth century CE. It is often mixed with the biblical Bashan, the part of the Biblical Holy Land, northeast of the Jordan River, as its Latinized form. Bash ...
. By the close of the second century,
Judah ha-Nasi Judah ha-Nasi (, ''Yəhūḏā hanNāsīʾ‎''; Yehudah HaNasi or Judah the Prince or Judah the President) or Judah I, known simply as Rebbi or Rabbi, was a second-century rabbi (a tanna of the fifth generation) and chief redactor and editor of ...
was granted a lease for 2,000 units of land in the Golan. An excavation at Hippos discovered a Roman road that connected the
Sea of Galilee The Sea of Galilee (, Judeo-Aramaic languages, Judeo-Aramaic: יַמּא דטבריא, גִּנֵּיסַר, ), also called Lake Tiberias, Genezareth Lake or Kinneret, is a freshwater lake in Israel. It is the lowest freshwater lake on Earth ...
with the city of Nawa in
Syria Syria, officially the Syrian Arab Republic, is a country in West Asia located in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Levant. It borders the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Turkey to Syria–Turkey border, the north, Iraq to Iraq–Syria border, t ...
. The political and economic recovery of
Palestine Palestine, officially the State of Palestine, is a country in West Asia. Recognized by International recognition of Palestine, 147 of the UN's 193 member states, it encompasses the Israeli-occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and th ...
during the reigns of
Diocletian Diocletian ( ; ; ; 242/245 – 311/312), nicknamed Jovius, was Roman emperor from 284 until his abdication in 305. He was born Diocles to a family of low status in the Roman province of Dalmatia (Roman province), Dalmatia. As with other Illyri ...
and Constantine, in the late 3rd and early 4th centuries AD, led to a resurgence of Jewish life in the Golan. Excavations at various synagogue sites have uncovered ceramics and coins that provide evidence of this resettlement. During this period, several
synagogue A synagogue, also called a shul or a temple, is a place of worship for Jews and Samaritans. It is a place for prayer (the main sanctuary and sometimes smaller chapels) where Jews attend religious services or special ceremonies such as wed ...
s were constructed, and today 25 locations with ancient synagogues or their remnants have been discovered, all situated in the central Golan. These synagogues, built from the abundant
basalt Basalt (; ) is an aphanite, aphanitic (fine-grained) extrusive igneous rock formed from the rapid cooling of low-viscosity lava rich in magnesium and iron (mafic lava) exposed at or very near the planetary surface, surface of a terrestrial ...
stones of the region, were influenced by those in the Galilee but exhibited their own distinctive characteristics; prominent examples include Umm el-Qanatir, Qatzrin and Deir Aziz. Some of the early
Jerusalem Talmud The Jerusalem Talmud (, often for short) or Palestinian Talmud, also known as the Talmud of the Land of Israel, is a collection of rabbinic notes on the second-century Jewish oral tradition known as the Mishnah. Naming this version of the Talm ...
tractates may have been arranged and edited during this period in Qatzrin. Several sites in the Golan show evidence of destruction from the Jewish revolt against Gallus in 351 CE. However, some of these sites were later rebuilt and continued to be inhabited in subsequent centuries. In the 5th century, the Byzantine Empire assigned the
Ghassanids The Ghassanids, also known as the Jafnids, were an Tribes of Arabia, Arab tribe. Originally from South Arabia, they migrated to the Levant in the 3rd century and established what would eventually become a Christian state, Christian kingdom unde ...
, a Christian Arab tribe that had settled in
Syria Syria, officially the Syrian Arab Republic, is a country in West Asia located in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Levant. It borders the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Turkey to Syria–Turkey border, the north, Iraq to Iraq–Syria border, t ...
, the task of protecting its eastern borders against the
Sasanian The Sasanian Empire (), officially Eranshahr ( , "Empire of the Iranians"), was an Iranian empire that was founded and ruled by the House of Sasan from 224 to 651. Enduring for over four centuries, the length of the Sasanian dynasty's reign ...
-allied Arab tribe, the
Lakhmids The Lakhmid kingdom ( ), also referred to as al-Manādhirah () or as Banū Lakhm (), was an Arab kingdom that was founded and ruled by the Lakhmid dynasty from to 602. Spanning Eastern Arabia and Sawad, Southern Mesopotamia, it existed as a d ...
. The Ghassanids had emigrated from
Yemen Yemen, officially the Republic of Yemen, is a country in West Asia. Located in South Arabia, southern Arabia, it borders Saudi Arabia to Saudi Arabia–Yemen border, the north, Oman to Oman–Yemen border, the northeast, the south-eastern part ...
in the third century and actively supported Byzantium against Persia. They were initially nomadic but gradually became semi-sedentary, and adopted Christianity along with a number of Arab tribes situated in the borders of the Byzantine Empire in the 3rd and 4th centuries. The Ghassanids had adopted
Monophysitism Monophysitism ( ) or monophysism ( ; from Greek , "solitary" and , "nature") is a Christological doctrine that states that there was only one nature—the divine—in the person of Jesus Christ, who was the incarnated Word. It is rejected as he ...
in the 5th century. At the end of the 5th century, the primary Ghassanid encampments in the Golan were Jabiyah and Jawlan, situated in the eastern Golan beyond the Ruqqad. The Ghassanids settled deep inside the Byzantine limes, and in a Syriac source for July 519, they are attested as having their "opulent" headquarters in the eastern Gaulanitis. Like the
Herodian dynasty The Herodian dynasty was a royal dynasty of Idumaean (Edomite) descent, ruling the Herodian Kingdom of Judea and later the Herodian tetrarchy as a vassal state of the Roman Empire. The Herodian dynasty began with Herod the Great who assumed ...
before them, the Ghassanids ruled as a
client state A client state in the context of international relations is a State (polity), state that is economically, politically, and militarily subordinated to a more powerful controlling state. Alternative terms for a ''client state'' are satellite state, ...
of Rome – this time, the Christianized Eastern Roman Empire, or Byzantium. In 529, Emperor
Justinian Justinian I (, ; 48214 November 565), also known as Justinian the Great, was Roman emperor from 527 to 565. His reign was marked by the ambitious but only partly realized ''renovatio imperii'', or "restoration of the Empire". This ambition was ...
appointed al-Harith ibn Jabalah as
Phylarch A phylarch (, ) is a Greek title meaning "ruler of a tribe", from ''phyle'', "tribe" + ''archein'' "to rule". Athens In Classical Athens, a phylarch was the elected commander of the cavalry provided by each of the city's ten tribes. In 442/44 ...
, making him the leader of all Arab tribes and bestowing upon him the title of Patricius, ranking just below the Emperor. Christians and Arabs became the majority in the Golan with the arrival of the Ghassanids to the region. In 377 CE, a sanctuary for
John the Baptist John the Baptist ( – ) was a Jewish preacher active in the area of the Jordan River in the early first century AD. He is also known as Saint John the Forerunner in Eastern Orthodoxy and Oriental Orthodoxy, John the Immerser in some Baptist ...
was established in the Golan village of Er-Ramthaniyye. The sanctuary was often visited by the Ghassanids. In the 6th century, the Golan was inhabited by the well-established Jews and Ghassanid Christians. The Jewish population in the Golan engaged in agriculture, as evidenced by pre-Islamic Arab poet Muraqquish the Younger, who mentioned wine brought by Jewish traders from the region, and local synagogues may have been funded by the prosperous production of olive oil. A monastery and church dedicated to
Saint George Saint George (;Geʽez: ጊዮርጊስ, , ka, გიორგი, , , died 23 April 303), also George of Lydda, was an early Christian martyr who is venerated as a saint in Christianity. According to holy tradition, he was a soldier in the ...
has been found in the Byzantine village of Deir Qeruh in the Golan, located near Gamla. The church has a square apse - a feature known from ancient Syria and Jordan, but not present in churches west of the
Jordan River The Jordan River or River Jordan (, ''Nahr al-ʾUrdunn''; , ''Nəhar hayYardēn''), also known as ''Nahr Al-Sharieat'' (), is a endorheic river in the Levant that flows roughly north to south through the Sea of Galilee and drains to the Dead ...
. The Ghassanids were able to hold on to the Golan until the
Sassanid The Sasanian Empire (), officially Eranshahr ( , "Empire of the Iranian peoples, Iranians"), was an List of monarchs of Iran, Iranian empire that was founded and ruled by the House of Sasan from 224 to 651. Enduring for over four centuries, th ...
invasion of 614. Following a brief restoration under the Emperor
Heraclius Heraclius (; 11 February 641) was Byzantine emperor from 610 to 641. His rise to power began in 608, when he and his father, Heraclius the Elder, the Exarch of Africa, led a revolt against the unpopular emperor Phocas. Heraclius's reign was ...
, the Golan again fell, this time to the invading Muslim Arabs after the
Battle of Yarmouk The Battle of the Yarmuk (also spelled Yarmouk; ) was a major battle between the army of the Byzantine Empire and the Arab Muslim forces of the Rashidun Caliphate. The battle consisted of a series of engagements that lasted for six days in Aug ...
in 636. Data from surveys and excavations combined show that the bulk of sites in the Golan were abandoned between the late 6th and early 7th century as a result of military incursions, the breakdown of law and order, and the economy brought on by the weakening of the Byzantine rule. Some settlements lasted till the end of the Umayyad era.


Early Muslim period

After the Battle of Yarmouk, Muawiyah I, a member of
Muhammad Muhammad (8 June 632 CE) was an Arab religious and political leader and the founder of Islam. Muhammad in Islam, According to Islam, he was a prophet who was divinely inspired to preach and confirm the tawhid, monotheistic teachings of A ...
's tribe, the Quraish, was appointed governor of Syria, including the Golan. Following the assassination of his cousin, the
Caliph A caliphate ( ) is an institution or public office under the leadership of an Islamic steward with Khalifa, the title of caliph (; , ), a person considered a political–religious successor to the Islamic prophet Muhammad and a leader of ...
Uthman Uthman ibn Affan (17 June 656) was the third caliph of the Rashidun Caliphate, ruling from 644 until his assassination in 656. Uthman, a second cousin, son-in-law, and notable companion of the Islamic Prophet Muhammad, played a major role ...
, Muawiya claimed the Caliphate for himself, initiating the
Umayyad The Umayyad Caliphate or Umayyad Empire (, ; ) was the second caliphate established after the death of the Islamic prophet Muhammad and was ruled by the Umayyad dynasty. Uthman ibn Affan, the third of the Rashidun caliphs, was also a membe ...
dynasty. Over the next few centuries, while remaining in Muslim hands, the Golan passed through many dynastic changes, falling first to the
Abbasids The Abbasid Caliphate or Abbasid Empire (; ) was the third caliphate to succeed the Islamic prophet Muhammad. It was founded by a dynasty descended from Muhammad's uncle, Abbas ibn Abd al-Muttalib (566–653 CE), from whom the dynasty takes i ...
, then to the
Shi'ite Shia Islam is the second-largest branch of Islam. It holds that Muhammad designated Ali ibn Abi Talib () as both his political successor (caliph) and as the spiritual leader of the Muslim community (imam). However, his right is understood to ...
Fatimids The Fatimid Caliphate (; ), also known as the Fatimid Empire, was a caliphate extant from the tenth to the twelfth centuries CE under the rule of the Fatimid dynasty, Fatimids, an Isma'ili Shi'a dynasty. Spanning a large area of North Africa ...
, then to the
Seljuk Turks The Seljuk dynasty, or Seljukids ( ; , ''Saljuqian'',) alternatively spelled as Saljuqids or Seljuk Turks, was an Oghuz Turks, Oghuz Turkic, Sunni Muslim dynasty that gradually became Persianate society, Persianate and contributed to Turco-Persi ...
. An earthquake devastated the Jewish village of Katzrin in 746 AD. Following it, there was a brief period of greatly diminished occupation during the Abbasid period (approximately 750–878). Jewish communities persisted at least into the Middle Ages in the towns of Fiq in the southern Golan and Nawa in Batanaea. For many centuries nomadic tribes lived together with the sedentary population in the region. At times, the central government attempted to settle the nomads which would result in the establishment of permanent communities. When the power of the governing regime declined, as happened during the early Muslim period, nomadic trends increased and many of the rural agricultural villages were abandoned due to harassment from the
Bedouin The Bedouin, Beduin, or Bedu ( ; , singular ) are pastorally nomadic Arab tribes who have historically inhabited the desert regions in the Arabian Peninsula, North Africa, the Levant, and Mesopotamia (Iraq). The Bedouin originated in the Sy ...
s. They were not resettled until the second half of the 19th century.


Crusader/Ayyubid period

During the
Crusades The Crusades were a series of religious wars initiated, supported, and at times directed by the Papacy during the Middle Ages. The most prominent of these were the campaigns to the Holy Land aimed at reclaiming Jerusalem and its surrounding t ...
, the Golan represented an obstacle to the Crusader armies, who nevertheless held the strategically important town of Banias twice, in 1128–32 and 1140–64. After victories by Sultan
Nur ad-Din Zangi Nūr al-Dīn Maḥmūd Zengī (; February 1118 – 15 May 1174), commonly known as Nur ad-Din (lit. 'Light of the Faith' in Arabic), was a Turkoman (ethnonym), Turkoman member of the Zengid dynasty, who ruled the Syria (region), Syrian province ...
, it was the Kurdish dynasty of the
Ayyubids The Ayyubid dynasty (), also known as the Ayyubid Sultanate, was the founding dynasty of the medieval Sultanate of Egypt established by Saladin in 1171, following his abolition of the Fatimid Caliphate of Egypt. A Sunni Muslim of Kurdish ori ...
under Sultan
Saladin Salah ad-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub ( – 4 March 1193), commonly known as Saladin, was the founder of the Ayyubid dynasty. Hailing from a Kurdish family, he was the first sultan of both Egypt and Syria. An important figure of the Third Crusade, h ...
who ruled the area. The
Mongols Mongols are an East Asian ethnic group native to Mongolia, China ( Inner Mongolia and other 11 autonomous territories), as well as the republics of Buryatia and Kalmykia in Russia. The Mongols are the principal member of the large family o ...
swept through in 1259, but were driven off by the
Mamluk Mamluk or Mamaluk (; (singular), , ''mamālīk'' (plural); translated as "one who is owned", meaning "slave") were non-Arab, ethnically diverse (mostly Turkic, Caucasian, Eastern and Southeastern European) enslaved mercenaries, slave-so ...
commander and future
sultan Sultan (; ', ) is a position with several historical meanings. Originally, it was an Arabic abstract noun meaning "strength", "authority", "rulership", derived from the verbal noun ', meaning "authority" or "power". Later, it came to be use ...
Qutuz Sayf ad-Din Qutuz (; died 24 October 1260), also romanized as Kutuz or Kotuz and fully al-Malik al-Muẓaffar Sayf ad-Dīn Quṭuz ( ), was the Mamluk Sultan of Egypt. He reigned as Sultan for less than a year, from 1259 until his assassi ...
at the
Battle of Ain Jalut The Battle of Ain Jalut (), also spelled Ayn Jalut, was fought between the Bahri Mamluks of Egypt and the Ilkhanate on 3 September 1260 (25 Ramadan 658 AH) near the spring of Ain Jalut in southeastern Galilee in the Jezreel Valley. It marks ...
in 1260. The victory at Ain Jalut ensured
Mamluk Mamluk or Mamaluk (; (singular), , ''mamālīk'' (plural); translated as "one who is owned", meaning "slave") were non-Arab, ethnically diverse (mostly Turkic, Caucasian, Eastern and Southeastern European) enslaved mercenaries, slave-so ...
dominance of the region for the next 250 years.


Ottoman period

In the 16th century, the Ottoman Turks conquered Syria. During this time, the Golan formed part of the Hauran Sanjak. During the 1560s, Ottoman official Mustafa Lala Pasha established al-Qunaytira as an important regional center, building a
caravanserai A caravanserai (or caravansary; ) was an inn that provided lodging for travelers, merchants, and Caravan (travellers), caravans. They were present throughout much of the Islamic world. Depending on the region and period, they were called by a ...
, a mosque and shops, and endowing them with properties in dozens of villages around the Golan. Some Druze communities were established in the Golan during the 17th and 18th centuries. The villages abandoned during previous periods due to raids by Bedouin tribes were not resettled until the second half of the 19th century. Ellenblum, R.br>Frankish Rural Settlement in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem
, Cambridge University Press, 2003. pg. 219-20.
Throughout the 18th century, the Al Fadl, an Arab tribe long established in the Levant, struggled against Turkmen and Kurdish tribesmen over supremacy in the Golan. The Fadl's presence in the Golan was observed by Burckhardt in the early 19th century.
Transhumance Transhumance is a type of pastoralism or Nomad, nomadism, a seasonal movement of livestock between fixed summer and winter pastures. In montane regions (''vertical transhumance''), it implies movement between higher pastures in summer and low ...
in the Golan remained a long-lasting phenomenon because of the region's harsh
winter Winter is the coldest and darkest season of the year in temperate and polar climates. It occurs after autumn and before spring. The tilt of Earth's axis causes seasons; winter occurs when a hemisphere is oriented away from the Sun. Dif ...
s. The winters "forced tribespeople until the 19th century to live in hundreds of rudimentary 'winter villages' in their tribal territory. Starting in the second part of the 19th century, the villages became "fixed and formed the nucleus of fully sedentary life in the 20th century Golan." In 1868, the region was described as "almost entirely desolate". According to a travel handbook of the time, only 11 of 127 ancient towns and villages in the Golan were inhabited. By the late 19th century, the Golan Heights was mostly inhabited by
Arabs Arabs (,  , ; , , ) are an ethnic group mainly inhabiting the Arab world in West Asia and North Africa. A significant Arab diaspora is present in various parts of the world. Arabs have been in the Fertile Crescent for thousands of yea ...
, Turkmen and
Circassians The Circassians or Circassian people, also called Cherkess or Adyghe (Adyghe language, Adyghe and ), are a Northwest Caucasian languages, Northwest Caucasian ethnic group and nation who originated in Circassia, a region and former country in t ...
. The Circassians, part of a large influx of refugees from the
Caucasus The Caucasus () or Caucasia (), is a region spanning Eastern Europe and Western Asia. It is situated between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, comprising parts of Southern Russia, Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan. The Caucasus Mountains, i ...
into the empire as a result of the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–78, were encouraged to settle in the Golan by the Ottoman authorities. They were granted lands with a 12-year tax exemption. The Al Fadl, the Druze and the Circassians were often in conflict for local dominance. These struggles subsided with the Ottoman government's formal recognition of the Al Fadl's tribal territory and pasturelands in the Golan, which were invested in the name of the tribe's emir. The emir relocated to Damascus and collected rents from his tribesmen who thereafter settled in the area and engaged in a combination of farming and pastoralism. The tribe settled in several villages in the area and controlled important roads to Damascus, Galilee and Lebanon. In the 19th century the tribe continued to expand their territory in the Golan and built two palaces. The leader of the tribe joined Prince Faisal during the
Arab revolt The Arab Revolt ( ), also known as the Great Arab Revolt ( ), was an armed uprising by the Hashemite-led Arabs of the Hejaz against the Ottoman Empire amidst the Middle Eastern theatre of World War I. On the basis of the McMahon–Hussein Co ...
, and they supported the uprising against the French in the northern Golan. In 1885, civil engineer and architect, Gottlieb Schumacher, conducted a survey of the entire Golan Heights on behalf of the German Society for the Exploration of the Holy Land, publishing his findings in a map and book entitled ''The Jaulân''.


Early Jewish settlement

In 1880, Laurence Oliphant published ' (The Land of
Gilead Gilead or Gilad (, ; ''Gilʿāḏ'', , ''Jalʻād'') is the ancient, historic, biblical name of the mountainous northern part of the region of Transjordan.''Easton's Bible Dictionary'Galeed''/ref> The region is bounded in the west by the J ...
), which described a plan for large-scale Jewish settlement in the Golan. In 1884, there were still open stretches of uncultivated land between villages in the lower Golan, but by the mid-1890s most were owned and cultivated. Some land had been purchased in the Golan and Hawran by Zionist associations based in Romania, Bulgaria, the United States and England, in the late 19th century and early 20th century.Kats, Yosef
The "business" of settlement: private entrepreneurship in the Jewish settlement of Palestine, 1900–1914
, Magnes Press, Hebrew University, 1994. p. 20. .
In the winter of 1885, members of the Old Yishuv in
Safed Safed (), also known as Tzfat (), is a city in the Northern District (Israel), Northern District of Israel. Located at an elevation of up to , Safed is the highest city in the Galilee and in Israel. Safed has been identified with (), a fortif ...
formed the Beit Yehuda Society and purchased 15,000 dunams of land from the village of Ramthaniye in the central Golan.Separation of Trans-Jordan from Palestine, Yitzhak Gil-Har, The Jerusalem Cathedra, ed. Lee Levine, Yad Yitzhak Ben Zvi and Wayne State University, Jerusalem, 1981, p.306 Due to financial hardships and the long wait for a ''kushan'' (Ottoman land deed) the village, Golan be-Bashan, was abandoned after a year. Soon afterwards, the society regrouped and purchased 2,000 dunams of land from the village of Bir e-Shagum on the western slopes of the Golan. The village they established, Bnei Yehuda, existed until 1920.M. R. Fishbach, ''Jewish property claims against Arab countries'',
Columbia University Press Columbia University Press is a university press based in New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's la ...
(2008), pp36-37.
The last families left in the wake of the Passover riots of 1920. In 1944 the JNF bought the Bnei Yehuda lands from their Jewish owners, but a later attempt to establish Jewish ownership of the property in Bir e-Shagum through the courts was not successful. Between 1891 and 1894, Baron Edmond James de Rothschild purchased around 150,000
Dunam A dunam ( Ottoman Turkish, Arabic: ; ; ; ), also known as a donum or dunum and as the old, Turkish, or Ottoman stremma, was the Ottoman unit of area analogous in role (but not equal) to the Greek stremma or English acre, representing the amo ...
s of land in the Golan and the Hawran for Jewish settlement. Legal and political permits were secured and ownership of the land was registered in late 1894. The Jews also built a road stretching from Lake Hula to Muzayrib. The Agudat Ahim society, whose headquarters were in Yekaterinoslav, Russia, acquired 100,000 dunams of land in several locations in the districts of Fiq and Daraa. A plant nursery was established and work began on farm buildings in Jillin. A village called Tiferet Binyamin was established on lands purchased from Saham al-Jawlan by the Shavei Zion Association based in New York, but the project was abandoned after a year when the Turks issued an edict in 1896 evicting the 17 non-Turkish families. A later attempt to resettle the site with Syrian Jews who were Ottoman citizens also failed.Efraim Orni, Elisha Efrat
Geography of Israel
, Israel Universities Press, 1971.
Between 1904 and 1908, a group of Crimean Jews settled near the Arab village of al-Butayha in the Bethsaida Valley, initially as tenants of a Kurdish proprietor with the prospects of purchasing the land, but the arrangement faltered. Jewish settlement in the region dwindled over time, due to Arab hostility, Turkish bureaucracy, disease and economic difficulties. In 1921–1930, during the French Mandate, the Palestine Jewish Colonization Association (PICA) obtained the deeds to the Rothschild estate and continued to manage it, collecting rents from the Arab peasants living there.


French and British mandates

Great Britain accepted a
Mandate for Palestine The Mandate for Palestine was a League of Nations mandate for British Empire, British administration of the territories of Mandatory Palestine, Palestine and Emirate of Transjordan, Transjordanwhich had been Ottoman Syria, part of the Ottoman ...
at the meeting of the Allied Supreme Council at San Remo, but the borders of the territory were not defined at that stage. The boundary between the forthcoming British and French mandates was defined in broad terms by the Franco-British Boundary Agreement of December 1920.Franco-British Convention on Certain Points Connected with the Mandates for Syria and the Lebanon, Palestine and Mesopotamia, signed 23 December 1920. Text available in ''American Journal of International Law'', Vol. 16, No. 3, 1922, 122–126. That agreement placed the bulk of the Golan Heights in the French sphere. The treaty also established a joint commission to settle the precise details of the border and mark it on the ground. The commission submitted its final report on 3 February 1922, and it was approved with some caveats by the British and French governments on 7 March 1923, several months before Britain and France assumed their Mandatory responsibilities on 29 September 1923.FSU Law
.
In accordance with the same process, a nearby parcel of land that included the ancient site of Tel Dan and the Dan spring were transferred from Syria to Palestine early in 1924. The Golan Heights, including the spring at Wazzani and the one at Banias, became part of French Syria, while the Sea of Galilee was placed entirely within British Mandatory Palestine. When the French Mandate for Syria ended in 1944, the Golan Heights became part of the newly independent state of Syria and was later incorporated into
Quneitra Governorate 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 ...
.


Border incidents after 1948

After the 1948–49 Arab–Israeli War, the Golan Heights was partly demilitarized by the Israel-Syria Armistice Agreement. During the following years, the area along the border witnessed thousands of violent incidents; the armistice agreement was being violated by both sides. The underlying causes of the conflict were a disagreement over the legal status of the demilitarised zone (DMZ), cultivation of land within it and competition over water resources. Syria claimed that neither party had sovereignty over the DMZ. Israel contended that the Armistice Agreement dealt solely with military concerns and that it had political and legal rights over the DMZ. Israel wanted to assert control up till the 1923 boundary in order to claim the Hula swamp, gain exclusive rights to Lake Galilee and divert water from the Jordan for its National Water Carrier. During the 1950s, Syria registered two principal territorial accomplishments: it took over Al Hammah enclosure south of Lake Tiberias and established a ''de facto'' presence on and control of the eastern shore of the lake.''The Brink of Peace: The Israeli–Syrian Negotiations'' By Itamar Rabinovich, page 19 Israel expelled Arabs from the DMZ and demolished their homes. Palestinian refugees were denied the right of return or compensation, and because of this they started raids on Israel. The Syrian government supported the Palestinian attacks because of Israel taking over more land in the DMZ. The Jordan Valley Unified Water Plan was sponsored by the United States and agreed by the technical experts of the
Arab League The Arab League (, ' ), officially the League of Arab States (, '), is a regional organization in the Arab world. The Arab League was formed in Cairo on 22 March 1945, initially with seven members: Kingdom of Egypt, Egypt, Kingdom of Iraq, ...
and Israel. The U.S. funded the Israeli and Jordanian water diversion projects, when they pledged to abide by the plan's allocations. President Nasser too, assured the U.S. that the Arabs would not exceed the plan's water quotas. However, in the early 1960s the Arab League funded a Syrian water diversion project that would have denied Israel use of a major portion of its water allocation. The resulting armed clashes are called the War over Water. In 1955, Israel launched an attack that killed 56 Syrian soldiers. The attack was condemned by the United Nations Security Council. In July 1966,
Fatah Fatah ( ; ), formally the Palestinian National Liberation Movement (), is a Palestinian nationalist and Arab socialist political party. It is the largest faction of the confederated multi-party Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and ...
began raids into Israeli territory, with active support from Syria. At first the militants entered via Lebanon or Jordan, but those countries made concerted attempts to stop them and raids directly from Syria increased.M. Shemesh, The Fida'iyyun Organization's Contribution to the Descent to the Six-Day War, ''Israel Studies'', vol 11, no. 1, 2006. Israel's response was a series of retaliatory raids, of which the largest were an attack on the Jordanian village of Samu in November 1966.M. Shemesh, The IDF Raid On Samu: The Turning-Point In Jordan's Relations With Israel and the West Bank Palestinians, ''Israel Studies'', vol 7, no. 1, 2002. In April 1967, after Syria heavily shelled Israeli villages from the Golan Heights, Israel shot down six Syrian MiG fighter planes and warned Syria against future attacks. The Israelis used to send tractors with armed police into the DMZ, which prompted Syria firing at Israel. In the period between the first Arab–Israeli War and the Six-Day War, the Syrians constantly harassed Israeli border communities by firing artillery shells from their dominant positions on the Golan Heights. In October 1966 Israel brought the matter up before the United Nations. Five nations sponsored a resolution criticizing Syria for its actions but it failed to pass. No Israeli civilian was killed in half a year leading up to the Six-Day War and the Syrian attacks have been called: "largely symbolic". Former Israeli General Mattityahu Peled said that more than half of the border clashes before the 1967 war "were a result of our security policy of maximum settlement in the demilitarised area".Washington Report on Middle East Affairs
, 1991-11.
Israeli incursions into the zone were responded to with Syrians shooting. Israel in turn would retaliate with military force. The narrative of Syrians attacking "innocent" Israel from the Golan Heights has been called "historical revisionism". In 1976, former Israeli defense minister
Moshe Dayan Moshe Dayan (; May 20, 1915 – October 16, 1981) was an Israeli military leader and politician. As commander of the Jerusalem front in the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, Chief of General Staff (Israel), Chief of the General Staff of the Israel Defe ...
said Israel provoked more than 80% of the clashes with Syria in the run up to the 1967 war, although two Israeli historians debate whether he was "giving an accurate account of the situation in 1967 or whether his version of what happened was colored by his disgrace after the 1973 Middle East war, when he was forced to resign as Defense Minister over the failure to anticipate the Arab attack." The provocation was sending a tractor to plow in the demilitarized areas to get the Syrians to attack. The Syrians responded by firing at the tractors and shelling
Israeli settlements Israeli settlements, also called Israeli colonies, are the civilian communities built by Israel throughout the Israeli-occupied territories. They are populated by Israeli citizens, almost exclusively of Jewish identity or ethnicity, and hav ...
. Jan Mühren, a former UN observer in the area at the time, told a Dutch current affairs programme that Israel "provoked most border incidents as part of its strategy to annex more land". UN officials blamed both Israel and Syria for destabilizing the borders.


Six-Day War and Israeli occupation

After the Six-Day War broke out in June 1967, Syria's shelling greatly intensified and the
Israeli army The Israeli Ground Forces () are the Army, ground forces of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). The commander is the GOC Army Headquarters, General Officer Commanding with the rank of major general, the ''Mazi'', subordinate to the Chief of the Gen ...
captured the Golan Heights on 9–10 June. The area that came under Israeli control as a result of the war consists of two geologically distinct areas: the Golan Heights proper, with a surface of , and the slopes of the Mt. Hermon range, with a surface of . The new ceasefire line was named the Purple Line. In the battle, 115 Israelis were killed and 306 wounded. An estimated 2,500 Syrians were killed, with another 5,000 wounded. During the war, between 80,000: "Another eighty to ninety thousand civilians fled or were driven from the Golan Heights." and 131,000 Syrians fled or were driven from the Heights and around 7,000 remained in the Israeli-occupied territory. Israeli sources and the
U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants The U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization with locations in the United States, Mexico, El Salvador, Honduras, and Kenya, and a national network of nearly 200 partner agencies that provide support ...
reported that much of the local population of 100,000 fled as a result of the war, whereas the Syrian government stated that a large proportion of it was expelled. Among those forced out was the Fadl tribe. Israel has not allowed former residents to return, citing security reasons. The remaining villages were
Majdal Shams Majdal Shams (; ) is a predominantly Druze town in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, located in the southern foothills of Mount Hermon. It is known as the informal "capital" of the region. Majdal Shams played a significant role in the Great ...
, Shayta (later destroyed),
Ein Qiniyye Ein Qiniyye or 'Ayn Qunya (; ) is a Druze village in the Israeli-occupied southern foothills of Mount Hermon, 750 meters above sea level. It was granted local council status in 1982. Its inhabitants are mostly Syrian citizens with permanent ...
,
Mas'ade Mas'ade (, ) is a Druze village in the northern Golan Heights, Syria. It covers an area of , and in had a population of . It was given the status of a local council in 1982. Its inhabitants are mostly Syrian citizens and have permanent residency ...
,
Buq'ata Buq'ata (; ) is a Druze town, administered as a Local council (Israel), local council, in the northern section of the Israeli-occupied territories, Israeli-occupied portion of the Golan Heights. Buq'ata covers an area of 7,000 dunams (7 km² ...
and, outside the Golan proper, Ghajar. Israeli settlement in the Golan began soon after the war. Merom Golan was founded in July 1967 and by 1970 there were 12 settlements.Golan Facts
.
Construction of
Israeli settlements Israeli settlements, also called Israeli colonies, are the civilian communities built by Israel throughout the Israeli-occupied territories. They are populated by Israeli citizens, almost exclusively of Jewish identity or ethnicity, and hav ...
began in the remainder of the territory held by Israel, which was under military administration until Israel passed the Golan Heights Law extending Israeli law and administration throughout the territory in 1981.Golan Heights Law
, MFA.
On 19 June 1967, the Israeli cabinet voted to return the Golan to Syria in exchange for a peace agreement, although this was rejected after the
Khartoum Resolution The Khartoum Resolution () of 1 September 1967 was issued at the conclusion of the 1967 Arab League summit, which was convened in Khartoum, the capital of Republic of the Sudan (1956–1969), Sudan, in the wake of the Six-Day War. The resoluti ...
of 1 September 1967. In the 1970s, as part of the
Allon Plan The Allon Plan () was a political proposition that outlined potential next steps for Israel after the Six-Day War, 1967 Arab–Israeli War. It was drafted by Israeli politician Yigal Allon following Israel's seizure of territory from Syria, Jor ...
, Israeli politician Yigal Allon proposed that a Druze state be established in Syria's
Quneitra Governorate 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 ...
, including the Israeli-held Golan Heights. Allon died in 1980 and his plan never materialised.


Yom Kippur War

During the
Yom Kippur War The Yom Kippur War, also known as the Ramadan War, the October War, the 1973 Arab–Israeli War, or the Fourth Arab–Israeli War, was fought from 6 to 25 October 1973 between Israel and a coalition of Arab world, Arab states led by Egypt and S ...
in 1973, Syrian forces overran much of the southern Golan, before being pushed back by an Israeli counterattack. Israel and Syria signed a ceasefire agreement in 1974 that left almost all the Heights in Israeli hands. The 1974 ceasefire agreement between Israel and Syria delineated a
demilitarized zone A demilitarized zone (DMZ or DZ) is an area in which treaties or agreements between states, military powers or contending groups forbid military installations, activities, or personnel. A DZ often lies along an established frontier or boundary ...
along their frontier and limited the number of forces each side can deploy within 25 kilometers (15 miles) of the zone. East of the 1974 ceasefire line lies the Syrian controlled part of the Heights, an area that was not captured by Israel (500 square kilometres or 190 sq mi) or withdrawn from (100 square kilometres or 39 sq mi). This area forms 30% of the Golan Heights. Today, it contains more than 40 Syrian towns and villages. In 1975, following the 1974 ceasefire agreement, Israel returned a narrow demilitarised zone to Syrian control. Some of the displaced residents began returning to their homes located in this strip and the Syrian government began helping people rebuild their villages, except for Quneitra. In the mid-1980s the Syrian government launched a plan called "The Project for the Reconstruction of the Liberated Villages". By the end of 2007, the population of the
Quneitra Governorate 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 ...
was estimated at 79,000. In the aftermath of the 1973 Yom Kippur War, in which Syria tried but failed to recapture the Golan, Israel agreed to return about 5% of the territory to Syrian civilian control. This part was incorporated into a demilitarised zone that runs along the ceasefire line and extends eastward. This strip is under the military control of UNDOF. Mines deployed by the Syrian army remain active. , there had been at least 216 landmine casualties in the Syrian-controlled Golan since 1973, of which 108 were fatalities.


''De facto'' annexation by Israel and civil rule

On 14 December 1981, Israel passed the Golan Heights Law, that extended Israeli "laws, jurisdiction and administration" to the Golan Heights. Although the law effectively
annexed Annexation, in international law, is the forcible acquisition and assertion of legal title over one state's territory by another state, usually following military occupation of the territory. In current international law, it is generally held to ...
the territory to Israel, it did not explicitly spell out a formal annexation. The Golan Heights Law was declared "null and void and without international legal effect" by United Nations Security Council Resolution 497, which also demanded that Israel rescind its decision.United Nations
Security Council Resolutions
, 1981.
During the negotiations regarding the text of United Nations Security Council Resolution 242, U.S. Secretary of State
Dean Rusk David Dean Rusk (February 9, 1909December 20, 1994) was the United States secretary of state from 1961 to 1969 under presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, the second-longest serving secretary of state after Cordell Hull from the ...
explained that U.S. support for secure permanent frontiers did not mean the United States supported territorial changes. The UN representative for the United Kingdom who was responsible for negotiating and drafting the Security Council resolution said that the actions of the Israeli Government in establishing settlements and colonizing the Golan are in clear defiance of Resolution 242. Syria continued to demand a full Israeli withdrawal to the 1967 borders, including a strip of land on the east shore of the
Sea of Galilee The Sea of Galilee (, Judeo-Aramaic languages, Judeo-Aramaic: יַמּא דטבריא, גִּנֵּיסַר, ), also called Lake Tiberias, Genezareth Lake or Kinneret, is a freshwater lake in Israel. It is the lowest freshwater lake on Earth ...
that Syria captured during the 1948–49 Arab–Israeli War and occupied from 1949 to 1967. Successive Israeli governments have considered an Israeli withdrawal from the Golan in return for normalization of relations with Syria, provided certain security concerns are met. Prior to 2000, Syrian president
Hafez al-Assad Hafez al-Assad (6 October 193010 June 2000) was a Syrian politician and military officer who was the president of Syria from 1971 until Death and state funeral of Hafez al-Assad, his death in 2000. He was previously the Prime Minister of Syria ...
rejected normalization with Israel. Since the passing of the Golan Heights Law, Israel has treated the Israeli-occupied portion of the Golan Heights as a subdistrict of its Northern District. The largest locality in the region is the Druze village of Majdal Shams, which is at the foot of Mount Hermon, while Katzrin is the largest
Israeli settlement Israeli settlements, also called Israeli colonies, are the civilian communities built by Israel throughout the Israeli-occupied territories. They are populated by Israeli citizens, almost exclusively of Israeli Jews, Jewish identity or ethni ...
. The region has 1,176 square kilometers. The subdistrict has a population density of 36 inhabitants per square kilometer, and its population includes Arab, Jewish and Druze citizens. The district has 36 localities, of which 32 are Jewish settlements and four are Druze villages. The plan for the creation of the settlements, which had initially begun in October 1967 with a request for a regional agricultural settlement plan for the Golan, was formally approved in 1971 and later revised in 1976. The plan called for the creation of 34 settlements by 1995, one of which would be an urban center, Katzrin, and the rest rural settlements, with a population of 54,000, among them 40,000 urban and the remaining rural. By 1992, 32 settlements had been created, among them one city and two regional centers. The population total had however fallen short of Israel's goals, with only 12,000 Jewish inhabitants in the Golan settlements in 1992.


= Municipal elections in Druze towns

= In 2016, a group of Druze lawyers petitioned the
Supreme Court of Israel The Supreme Court of Israel (, Hebrew acronym Bagatz; ) is the Supreme court, highest court in Israel. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all other courts, and in some cases original jurisdiction. The Supreme Court consists of 15 jud ...
to allow elections for local councils in the Golan Druze towns of
Majdal Shams Majdal Shams (; ) is a predominantly Druze town in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, located in the southern foothills of Mount Hermon. It is known as the informal "capital" of the region. Majdal Shams played a significant role in the Great ...
,
Buq'ata Buq'ata (; ) is a Druze town, administered as a Local council (Israel), local council, in the northern section of the Israeli-occupied territories, Israeli-occupied portion of the Golan Heights. Buq'ata covers an area of 7,000 dunams (7 km² ...
,
Mas'ade Mas'ade (, ) is a Druze village in the northern Golan Heights, Syria. It covers an area of , and in had a population of . It was given the status of a local council in 1982. Its inhabitants are mostly Syrian citizens and have permanent residency ...
, and
Ein Qiniyye Ein Qiniyye or 'Ayn Qunya (; ) is a Druze village in the Israeli-occupied southern foothills of Mount Hermon, 750 meters above sea level. It was granted local council status in 1982. Its inhabitants are mostly Syrian citizens with permanent ...
, replacing the previous system in which their members were appointed by the national government. On 3 July 2017, the
Interior Ministry An interior ministry or ministry of the interior (also called ministry of home affairs or ministry of internal affairs) is a government department that is responsible for domestic policy, public security and law enforcement. In some states, the ...
announced those towns would be included in the 2018 Israeli municipal elections. The turnout was just over 1% with Druze religious leaders telling community members to boycott the elections or face shunning. The UN Human Rights Council issued a Resolution on Human Rights in the Occupied Syrian Golan on 23 March 2018 that included the statement "Deploring the announcement by the Israeli occupying authorities in July 2017 that municipal elections would be held on 30 October 2018 in the four villages in the occupied Syrian Golan, which constitutes another violation to international humanitarian law and to relevant Security Council resolutions, in particular resolution 497 (1981)".


Israeli–Syrian peace negotiations

During United States-brokered negotiations in 1999–2000, Israel and Syria discussed a peace deal that would include Israeli withdrawal in return for a comprehensive peace structure, recognition and full normalization of relations. The disagreement in the final stages of the talks was on access to the Sea of Galilee. Israel offered to withdraw to the pre-1948 border (the 1923 Paulet-Newcombe line), while Syria insisted on the 1967 frontier. The former line has never been recognised by Syria, claiming it was imposed by the colonial powers, while the latter was rejected by Israel as the result of Syrian aggression. The difference between the lines is less than 100 meters for the most part, but the 1967 line would give Syria access to the Sea of Galilee, and Israel wished to retain control of the Sea of Galilee, its only freshwater lake and a major water resource.
Dennis Ross Dennis B. Ross (born November 26, 1948) is an American diplomat and author. He served as the Director of Policy Planning in the State Department under President George H. W. Bush, the special Middle East coordinator under President Bill Clinton ...
, U.S. President
Bill Clinton William Jefferson Clinton (né Blythe III; born August 19, 1946) is an American politician and lawyer who was the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, ...
's chief Middle East negotiator, blamed "cold feet" on the part of Israeli Prime Minister
Ehud Barak Ehud Barak ( ; born Ehud Brog; 12 February 1942) is an Israeli former general and politician who served as the Prime Minister of Israel, prime minister from 1999 to 2001. He was leader of the Israeli Labor Party, Labor Party between 1997 and 20 ...
for the breakdown. Clinton also laid blame on Israel, as he said after the fact in his autobiography '' My Life''. In June 2007, it was reported that Prime Minister
Ehud Olmert Ehud Olmert (; , ; born 30 September 1945) is an Israeli politician and lawyer who served as the prime minister of Israel from 2006 to 2009. The son of a former Herut politician, Olmert was first elected to the Knesset for Likud in 1973, at th ...
had sent a secret message to Syrian President
Bashar al-Assad Bashar al-Assad (born 11September 1965) is a Syrian politician, military officer and former dictator Sources characterising Assad as a dictator: who served as the president of Syria from 2000 until fall of the Assad regime, his government ...
saying that Israel would concede the land in exchange for a comprehensive peace agreement and the severing of Syria's ties with Iran and militant groups in the region. On the same day, former Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu Benjamin Netanyahu (born 21 October 1949) is an Israeli politician who has served as the prime minister of Israel since 2022, having previously held the office from 1996 to 1999 and from 2009 to 2021. Netanyahu is the longest-serving prime min ...
announced that the former Syrian President,
Hafez al-Assad Hafez al-Assad (6 October 193010 June 2000) was a Syrian politician and military officer who was the president of Syria from 1971 until Death and state funeral of Hafez al-Assad, his death in 2000. He was previously the Prime Minister of Syria ...
, had promised to let Israel retain
Mount Hermon Mount Hermon ( / ALA-LC: ('Mountain of the Sheikh', ), , ) is a mountain, mountain cluster constituting the southern end of the Anti-Lebanon mountain range. Its summit straddles the Lebanon–Syria border, border between Syria and Lebanon a ...
in any future agreement. In April 2008, Syrian media reported
Turkey Turkey, officially the Republic of Türkiye, is a country mainly located in Anatolia in West Asia, with a relatively small part called East Thrace in Southeast Europe. It borders the Black Sea to the north; Georgia (country), Georgia, Armen ...
's Prime Minister
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (born 26 February 1954) is a Turkish politician who is the 12th and current president of Turkey since 2014. He previously served as the 25th prime minister of Turkey, prime minister from 2003 to 2014 as part of the Jus ...
had told President Bashar al-Assad that Israel would withdraw from the Golan Heights in return for peace. Israeli leaders of communities in the Golan Heights held a special meeting and stated: "all construction and development projects in the Golan are going ahead as planned, propelled by the certainty that any attempt to harm Israeli sovereignty in the Golan will cause severe damage to state security and thus is doomed to fail". A 2008 survey found that 70% of Israelis oppose relinquishing the Golan for peace with Syria. In 2008, a plenary session of the
United Nations General Assembly The United Nations General Assembly (UNGA or GA; , AGNU or AG) is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations (UN), serving as its main deliberative, policymaking, and representative organ. Currently in its Seventy-ninth session of th ...
passed a resolution 161–1 in favour of a motion on the Golan Heights that reaffirmed UN Security Council Resolution 497 and called on Israel to desist from "changing the physical character, demographic composition, institutional structure and legal status of the occupied Syrian Golan and, in particular, to desist from the establishment of settlements ndfrom imposing Israeli citizenship and Israeli identity cards on the Syrian citizens in the occupied Syrian Golan and from its repressive measures against the population of the occupied Syrian Golan." Israel was the only nation to vote against the resolution. Indirect talks broke down after the
Gaza War The Gaza war is an armed conflict in the Gaza Strip and southern Israel fought since 7 October 2023. A part of the unresolved Israeli–Palestinian conflict, Israeli–Palestinian and Gaza–Israel conflict, Gaza–Israel conflicts dating ...
began. Syria broke off the talks to protest Israeli military operations. Israel subsequently appealed to Turkey to resume mediation. In May 2009, Prime Minister Netanyahu said that returning the Golan Heights would turn it into "
Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) and also known as Persia, is a country in West Asia. It borders Iraq to the west, Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Armenia to the northwest, the Caspian Sea to the north, Turkmenistan to the nort ...
's front lines which will threaten the whole state of Israel". He said: "I remember the Golan Heights without Katzrin, and suddenly we see a thriving city in the
Land of Israel The Land of Israel () is the traditional Jewish name for an area of the Southern Levant. Related biblical, religious and historical English terms include the Land of Canaan, the Promised Land, the Holy Land, and Palestine. The definition ...
, which having been a gem of the
Second Temple The Second Temple () was the Temple in Jerusalem that replaced Solomon's Temple, which was destroyed during the Siege of Jerusalem (587 BC), Babylonian siege of Jerusalem in 587 BCE. It was constructed around 516 BCE and later enhanced by Herod ...
era has been revived anew." American diplomat Martin Indyk said that the 1999–2000 round of negotiations began during Netanyahu's first term (1996–1999), and he was not as hardline as he made out. In March 2009, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad claimed that indirect talks had failed after Israel did not commit to full withdrawal from the Golan Heights. In August 2009, he said that the return of the entire Golan Heights was "non-negotiable", it would remain "fully Arab", and would be returned to Syria. In June 2009, Israeli President
Shimon Peres Shimon Peres ( ; ; born Szymon Perski, ; 2 August 1923 – 28 September 2016) was an Israeli politician and statesman who served as the prime minister of Israel from 1984 to 1986 and from 1995 to 1996 and as the president of Israel from 2007 t ...
said that Assad would have to negotiate without preconditions, and that Syria would not win territorial concessions from Israel on a "silver platter" while it maintained ties with Iran and Hezbollah. In response, Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem demanded that Israel unconditionally cede the Golan Heights "on a silver platter" without any preconditions, adding that "it is our land," and blamed Israel for failing to commit to peace. Syrian President Assad claimed that there was "no real partner in Israel". In 2010, Israeli foreign minister
Avigdor Lieberman Avigdor Lieberman (, ; born 5 June 1958) is a Soviet-born Israeli politician who served as Ministry of Finance (Israel), Minister of Finance between 2021 and 2022, having previously served twice as Deputy Prime Minister of Israel from 2006 to ...
said: "We must make Syria recognise that just as it relinquished its dream of a greater Syria that controls Lebanon ... it will have to relinquish its ultimate demand regarding the Golan Heights."


Syrian Civil War

From 2012 to 2018 in the Syrian Civil War, the eastern Golan Heights became a scene of repeated battles between the Syrian Arab Army, rebel factions of the
Syrian opposition Syrians () are the majority inhabitants of Syria, indigenous to the Levant, most of whom have Arabic, especially its Levantine and Mesopotamian dialects, as a mother tongue. The cultural and linguistic heritage of the Syrian people is a blend ...
including the moderate Southern Front and jihadist
al-Nusra Front Al-Nusra Front or Jabhat al-Nusra or Jabhat Nusrat Ahl al-Sham, also known as Front for the Conquest of the Levant, and also later known as Jabhat Fatah al-Sham was a Salafi-jihadist organization that fought against Ba'athist Syria, Ba'athist ...
, and factions affiliated with the
Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant The Islamic State (IS), also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and Daesh, is a transnational Salafi jihadist organization and unrecognized quasi-state. IS occupied signi ...
(ISIL) terrorist group. The atrocities of the Syrian Civil War and the rise of ISIL, which from 2016 to 2018 controlled parts of the Syrian-administered Golan, have added a new twist to the issue. In 2015, it was reported that Israeli Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu Benjamin Netanyahu (born 21 October 1949) is an Israeli politician who has served as the prime minister of Israel since 2022, having previously held the office from 1996 to 1999 and from 2009 to 2021. Netanyahu is the longest-serving prime min ...
asked US President
Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II (born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who was the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the first African American president in American history. O ...
to recognize Israeli claims to the territory because of these recent ISIL actions and because he said that modern Syria had likely "disintegrated" beyond the point of reunification. The
White House The White House is the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue Northwest (Washington, D.C.), NW in Washington, D.C., it has served as the residence of every U.S. president ...
dismissed Netanyahu's suggestion, stating that President Obama continued to support UN resolutions 242 and 497, and any alterations of this policy could strain American alliances with Western-backed Syrian rebel groups. In 2016, the
Islamic State The Islamic State (IS), also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and Daesh, is a transnational Salafi jihadism, Salafi jihadist organization and unrecognized quasi-state. IS ...
apologized to Israel after a fire exchange with Israeli soldiers in the area. In May 2018, the
Israel Defense Forces The Israel Defense Forces (IDF; , ), alternatively referred to by the Hebrew-language acronym (), is the national military of the State of Israel. It consists of three service branches: the Israeli Ground Forces, the Israeli Air Force, and ...
(IDF) launched "extensive" air strikes against alleged
Iranian Iranian () may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Iran ** Iranian diaspora, Iranians living outside Iran ** Iranian architecture, architecture of Iran and parts of the rest of West Asia ** Iranian cuisine, cooking traditions and practic ...
military installations in Syria after 20 Iranian rockets were reportedly launched at Israeli army positions in the Western Golan Heights. On 17 April 2018 in the aftermath of the 2018 missile strikes against Syria by the United States, France, and the United Kingdom about 500
Druze The Druze ( ; , ' or ', , '), who Endonym and exonym, call themselves al-Muwaḥḥidūn (), are an Arabs, Arab Eastern esotericism, esoteric Religious denomination, religious group from West Asia who adhere to the Druze faith, an Abrahamic ...
in the Golan town of
Ein Qiniyye Ein Qiniyye or 'Ayn Qunya (; ) is a Druze village in the Israeli-occupied southern foothills of Mount Hermon, 750 meters above sea level. It was granted local council status in 1982. Its inhabitants are mostly Syrian citizens with permanent ...
marched in support of Syrian president
Bashar al-Assad Bashar al-Assad (born 11September 1965) is a Syrian politician, military officer and former dictator Sources characterising Assad as a dictator: who served as the president of Syria from 2000 until fall of the Assad regime, his government ...
on Syria's
Independence day An independence day is an annual event memorialization, commemorating the anniversary of a nation's independence or Sovereign state, statehood, usually after ceasing to be a group or part of another nation or state, or after the end of a milit ...
and in condemnation of the American-led strikes. On 31 July 2018, after waging a month-long military offensive against the rebels and ISIL, the Syrian government regained control of the eastern Golan Heights.


2023–2024 war

In June 2024,
Hezbollah Hezbollah ( ; , , ) is a Lebanese Shia Islamist political party and paramilitary group. Hezbollah's paramilitary wing is the Jihad Council, and its political wing is the Loyalty to the Resistance Bloc party in the Lebanese Parliament. I ...
launched a series of retaliatory rocket and drone attacks in the Golan Heights, resulting in the destruction of 10,000 dunams of open areas by fire. It was in response to Israel's attack on Hezbollah targets in Lebanon. The fire damaged parts of the Yehudiya Forest Nature Reserve, including hiking trails and the reserve's Black Canyon. According to an official from the Nature and Parks Authority, it will take years for the local flora to recover. On 27 July 2024, a rocket from Southern Lebanon struck a soccer field in the Druze town of
Majdal Shams Majdal Shams (; ) is a predominantly Druze town in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, located in the southern foothills of Mount Hermon. It is known as the informal "capital" of the region. Majdal Shams played a significant role in the Great ...
in the Golan Heights. The strike resulted in the deaths of 12 Druze children. The IDF stated the rocket was fired by Hezbollah, a claim which Hezbollah denied. Following the 2024 Syrian opposition offensives and the
fall of the Assad regime On 8 December 2024, the Assad regime collapsed during a 2024 Syrian opposition offensives, major offensive by Syrian opposition, opposition forces. The offensive was spearheaded by Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and supported mainly by the Turk ...
, Prime Minister Netanyahu ordered Israeli forces to seize the buffer zone on 8 December 2024, citing the abandonment of Syrian positions and the collapse of the 1974 ceasefire agreement. Israeli forces also launched strikes on Syrian military assets, including air stirkes destroying the Syrian Navy and, it was claimed, 90% of Syria's known surface-to-air missiles. Israel started violating the 1974 Disengagement Agreement before Assad's fall in November with engineering work and battle tanks inside the demilitarized zone. UNDOF had: "repeatedly engaged with the IDF to protest the construction" In December, Israeli forces occupied
Mount Hermon Mount Hermon ( / ALA-LC: ('Mountain of the Sheikh', ), , ) is a mountain, mountain cluster constituting the southern end of the Anti-Lebanon mountain range. Its summit straddles the Lebanon–Syria border, border between Syria and Lebanon a ...
advancing as far as the town of Beqaasem, situated about 25 kilometers from Damascus. Holding Mount Hermon - at 2,800 meters the highest point in Syria - would facilitate Israeli electronic surveillance deep in Syrian territory and provide additional warning with respect to military developments in the region.


Territorial claims

Claims on the territory include the fact that an area in northwestern of the Golan region, delineated by a rough triangle formed by the towns of Banias, Quneitra and the northern tip of the
Sea of Galilee The Sea of Galilee (, Judeo-Aramaic languages, Judeo-Aramaic: יַמּא דטבריא, גִּנֵּיסַר, ), also called Lake Tiberias, Genezareth Lake or Kinneret, is a freshwater lake in Israel. It is the lowest freshwater lake on Earth ...
, was temporarily part of the British Palestine Mandate in which the establishment of a Jewish national home had been promised.Edgar S. Marshall. ''Israel: current issues and historical background''. Nova Publishers, 2002. pg. 35. . In 1923, this triangle in northwestern Golan was ceded to the French Mandate in Syria, but in exchange for this, land areas in Syria and Lebanon was ceded to Palestine, and the whole of the Sea of Galilee which previously had its eastern boundary connected to Syria was placed inside Palestine. Syrian counters that the region was placed in the Vilayet of Damascus as part of Syria under the Ottoman boundaries, and that the 1920 Franco-British agreement, which had placed part of the Golan under the control of Britain, was only temporary. Syria further holds that the final border line drawn up in 1923, which excluded the Golan triangle, had superseded the 1920 agreement, although Syria has never recognised the 1923 border as legally binding. Israel considers the Golan Heights vital for its national security, asserting that control over the region is necessary to defend against threats from Syria and Iranian proxy groups. It maintains that it may retain the area, as the text of
Resolution 242 United Nations Security Council Resolution 242 (S/RES/242) was adopted unanimously by the UN Security Council on November 22, 1967, in the aftermath of the Six-Day War. It was adopted under Chapter VI of the United Nations Charter, Chapter VI of ...
calls for "safe and recognised boundaries free from threats or acts of force".Y.Z Blum "Secure Boundaries and Middle East Peace in the Light of International Law and Practice" (1971) pages 24–46


Borders, armistice line and ceasefire line

One of the aspects of the dispute involves the existence prior to 1967 of three different lines separating Syria from the area that before 1948 was referred to as
Mandatory Palestine Mandatory Palestine was a British Empire, British geopolitical entity that existed between 1920 and 1948 in the Palestine (region), region of Palestine, and after 1922, under the terms of the League of Nations's Mandate for Palestine. After ...
. The 1923 boundary between British
Mandatory Palestine Mandatory Palestine was a British Empire, British geopolitical entity that existed between 1920 and 1948 in the Palestine (region), region of Palestine, and after 1922, under the terms of the League of Nations's Mandate for Palestine. After ...
and the French Mandate of Syria was drawn with water in mind. Accordingly, it was demarcated so that all of the
Sea of Galilee The Sea of Galilee (, Judeo-Aramaic languages, Judeo-Aramaic: יַמּא דטבריא, גִּנֵּיסַר, ), also called Lake Tiberias, Genezareth Lake or Kinneret, is a freshwater lake in Israel. It is the lowest freshwater lake on Earth ...
, including a wide strip of beach along its northeastern shore, would stay inside
Mandatory Palestine Mandatory Palestine was a British Empire, British geopolitical entity that existed between 1920 and 1948 in the Palestine (region), region of Palestine, and after 1922, under the terms of the League of Nations's Mandate for Palestine. After ...
. From the Sea of Galilee north to Lake Hula the boundary was drawn between east of the upper
Jordan River The Jordan River or River Jordan (, ''Nahr al-ʾUrdunn''; , ''Nəhar hayYardēn''), also known as ''Nahr Al-Sharieat'' (), is a endorheic river in the Levant that flows roughly north to south through the Sea of Galilee and drains to the Dead ...
, keeping that stream entirely within
Mandatory Palestine Mandatory Palestine was a British Empire, British geopolitical entity that existed between 1920 and 1948 in the Palestine (region), region of Palestine, and after 1922, under the terms of the League of Nations's Mandate for Palestine. After ...
. The British also received a sliver of land along the Yarmouk River, out to the present-day Hamat Gader. During the Arab–Israeli War, Syria captured various areas of the formerly British controlled
Mandatory Palestine Mandatory Palestine was a British Empire, British geopolitical entity that existed between 1920 and 1948 in the Palestine (region), region of Palestine, and after 1922, under the terms of the League of Nations's Mandate for Palestine. After ...
, including the 10-meter strip of beach, the east bank of the upper Jordan, as well as areas along the Yarmouk. While negotiating the
1949 Armistice Agreements The 1949 Armistice Agreements were signed between Israel and Egypt, Following the armistice, both Israel and Syria sought to take advantage of the territorial ambiguities left in place by the 1949 agreement. This resulted in an evolving tactical situation, one "snapshot" of which was the disposition of forces immediately prior to the
Six-Day War The Six-Day War, also known as the June War, 1967 Arab–Israeli War or Third Arab–Israeli War, was fought between Israel and a coalition of Arab world, Arab states, primarily United Arab Republic, Egypt, Syria, and Jordan from 5 to 10June ...
, the "line of June 4, 1967".


Shebaa Farms

A small portion of territory in the Golan Heights, on the Lebanon–Syria border, has been a particular flashpoint. The territory, known as the
Shebaa Farms The Shebaa Farms, also spelled Sheba'a Farms (, '; ''Havot Sheba‘a),'' also known as Mount Dov (), is a strip of land on the Lebanese–Syrian border that is currently occupied by Israel. Lebanon claims the Shebaa Farms as its own territory ...
, measures only . Since 2000, Lebanon has officially claimed it to be Lebanese territory from which Israel should withdraw, and Syria has concurred. The approximate boundary between Lebanon and Syria has its origins in an 1862 French map. During the early period of the French Mandate, both French and British maps were inconsistent regarding the boundary in the western Golan region, with some showing the Shebaa Farms in Lebanon and others, the majority, showing them in Syria. However, by 1936 the disagreement was eliminated by high quality maps showing the Shebaa Farms in Syria, and these formed the basis of later official maps. According to Kaufman, the choice between the two options was due to a preference for drawing boundaries along watersheds rather than along valleys. However, no detailed delineation or demarcation was performed throughout the mandate period. Meanwhile, problems were reported with the location of the boundary. Several official documents from the 1930s state that the boundary lies along the Wadi al-'Asal (to the south of the Shebaa Farms). Local officials of the French administration reported that the de facto boundary did not correspond to the boundary shown on maps. The High Commissioner requested a Syrian–Lebanese negotiation but apparently nothing happened. From the founding of the Syrian Republic in 1946 until the Israeli occupation in 1967, the Shebaa Farms were controlled by Syria and Lebanon did not make any known official complaint. The Israel occupation cut off the access of many Lebanese residents from the farms they had worked. In the context of renewal of the UNIFIL mandate, the Lebanese government implicitly endorsed United Nations maps of the region in 1978 and many times later, even though the maps showed the Shebaa Farms in Syria. Lebanese newspapers, residents and politicians lobbied the Lebanese government in the early 1980s to take up the issue, but it was apparently not raised in the failed negotiations for an Israeli withdrawal after the 1982 Israeli invasion. A series of publications appeared, partly assisted by
Hezbollah Hezbollah ( ; , , ) is a Lebanese Shia Islamist political party and paramilitary group. Hezbollah's paramilitary wing is the Jihad Council, and its political wing is the Loyalty to the Resistance Bloc party in the Lebanese Parliament. I ...
and Amal, and a committee which formed in the Lebanese town of Shebaa wrote to the UN in 1986 protesting Israeli occupation of their lands. However, it was Hezbollah in 2000 which first adopted the Shebaa Farms as the basis for a public territorial claim against Israel. On 7 June 2000, the United Nations published the ''Blue Line'' as the line to which Israel should withdraw from Lebanon in accordance with Security Council Resolution 425. The UN chose to follow the maps at its disposal and did not accept the Lebanese complaint from several weeks earlier that the Shebaa Farms were in Lebanon. After the Israeli withdrawal, the United Nations affirmed on 18 June 2000 that Israel had withdrawn its forces from Lebanon. However, the press release noted that both Lebanon and Syria disagreed, considering the Shebaa Farms area to be Lebanese. In deference to the Lebanese position, the Blue Line is not marked on the ground in this location. The attitude of the UN shifted during the following years. In 2006, the Lebanese government presented the UN with a seven-point plan that included a proposal to place the Shebaa Farms under UN administration until boundary demarcation and sovereignty were settled. In August of that year, the Security Council passed Resolution 1701 which "took due note" of the Lebanese plan and called for "delineation of the international borders of Lebanon, especially in those areas where the border is disputed or uncertain, including by dealing with the Shebaa farms area". In 2007, a UN cartographer delineated the boundaries of the region: "starting from the turning point of the 1920 French line located just south of the village of El Majidiye; from there continuing south-east along the 1946 Moughr Shab'a-Shab'a boundary until reaching the thalweg of the Wadi al-Aasal; thence following the thalweg of the wadi north-east until reaching the crest of the mountain north of the former hamlet Mazraat Barakhta and reconnecting with the 1920 line." As of 2023, neither Syria nor Israel have responded to the delineation, nor have Lebanon and Syria made progress towards border demarcation. The position of Israel, which occupied the Golan Heights in 1967 and annexed them in 1981 to the disapproval of the international community, is that the Shebaa Farms belonged to Syria and there is no case for Lebanese sovereignty.


Ghajar

The village of Ghajar is another complex border issue west of
Shebaa farms The Shebaa Farms, also spelled Sheba'a Farms (, '; ''Havot Sheba‘a),'' also known as Mount Dov (), is a strip of land on the Lebanese–Syrian border that is currently occupied by Israel. Lebanon claims the Shebaa Farms as its own territory ...
. Before the 1967 war this
Alawite Alawites () are an Arabs, Arab ethnoreligious group who live primarily in the Levant region in West Asia and follow Alawism, a sect of Islam that splintered from early Shia as a ''ghulat'' branch during the ninth century. Alawites venerate A ...
village was in Syria. Residents of Ghajar accepted Israeli citizenship in 1981. It is divided by an international boundary, with the northern part of the village on the Lebanese side since
2000 2000 was designated as the International Year for the Culture of Peace and the World Mathematics, Mathematical Year. Popular culture holds the year 2000 as the first year of the 21st century and the 3rd millennium, because of a tende ...
. Most residents hold dual
Syrian Syrians () are the majority inhabitants of Syria, indigenous to the Levant, most of whom have Arabic, especially its Levantine and Mesopotamian dialects, as a mother tongue. The cultural and linguistic heritage of the Syrian people is a blend ...
and Israeli citizenship. Residents of both parts hold Israeli citizenship, and in the northern part often a Lebanese passport as well. Today the entire village is surrounded by a fence, with no division between the Israeli-occupied and Lebanese sides. There is an
Israeli army The Israeli Ground Forces () are the Army, ground forces of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). The commander is the GOC Army Headquarters, General Officer Commanding with the rank of major general, the ''Mazi'', subordinate to the Chief of the Gen ...
checkpoint at the entrance to the village from the rest of the Golan Heights.


International views

The international community largely considers the Golan to be Syrian territory held under Israeli occupation.*"The international community maintains that the Israeli decision to impose its laws, jurisdiction and administration in the occupied Syrian Golan is null and void and without international legal effect." *In 2008, a plenary session of the United Nations General Assembly voted by 161–1 in favour of a motion on the "occupied Syrian Golan" that reaffirmed support for UN Resolution 497.
General Assembly adopts broad range of texts, 26 in all, on recommendation of its fourth Committee, including on decolonization, information, Palestine refugees
, United Nations, 5 December 2008.) *"the Syrian Golan Heights territory, which Israel has occupied since 1967". Also, "the Golan Heights, a 450-square mile portion of southwestern Syria that Israel occupied during the 1967 Arab–Israeli war."
CRS Issue Brief for Congress: Syria: U.S. Relations and Bilateral Issues
, Congressional Research Service. 19 January 2006)
Occupied territory: *"Israeli-occupied Golan Heights" (Central Intelligence Agency
CIA World Factbook 2010
Skyhorse Publishing Inc., 2009. pg. 339. .) *"...the United States considers the Golan Heights to be occupied territory subject to negotiation and Israeli withdrawal..."
"CRS Issue Brief for Congress: Israeli–United States Relations"
, Congressional Research Service, 5 April 2002. pg. 5. Retrieved 1 August 2010.) *"Occupied Golan Heights"
Travel advice: Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories
, UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Retrieved 1 August 2010.) *"In the ICRC's view, the Golan is an occupied territory."
ICRC activities in the occupied Golan during 2007
, International Committee of the Red Cross, 24 April 2008.)
On 25 March 2019, then-President of the United States
Donald Trump Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who is the 47th president of the United States. A member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party, he served as the 45 ...
proclaimed U.S. recognition of the Golan Heights as a part of the State of Israel, making it the first country to do so. Israeli officials lobbied the United States into recognizing "Israeli sovereignty" over the territory. The 28 member states of the
European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational union, supranational political union, political and economic union of Member state of the European Union, member states that are Geography of the European Union, located primarily in Europe. The u ...
declared in turn that they do not recognize Israeli sovereignty, and several experts on international law reiterated that the principle remains that land gained by either defensive or offensive wars cannot be legally annexed under international law.Noa Landau
Legal Experts Debunk Netanyahu's Golan Heights Claim: Annexation Can't Be Excused by Defensive War
,
Haaretz ''Haaretz'' (; originally ''Ḥadshot Haaretz'' – , , ) is an List of newspapers in Israel, Israeli newspaper. It was founded in 1918, making it the longest running newspaper currently in print in Israel. The paper is published in Hebrew lan ...
, 31 March 2019
Zachary Laub
'The Golan Heights: What's at Stake With Trump's Recognition,'
Council of Foreign Relations 28 March 2019
Jon Stone
'EU member states unanimously reject Israel's sovereignty over Golan Heights, defying Trump and Netanyahu,'
The Independent ''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publis ...
29 March 2019.
The European members of the UN Security Council issued a joint statement condemning the U.S. announcement and the UN Secretary-General issued a statement saying that the status of the Golan had not changed. Under the subsequent administration of President Joe Biden, the U.S. State Department's annual report on human rights violations around the world once more refers to the
West Bank The West Bank is located on the western bank of the Jordan River and is the larger of the two Palestinian territories (the other being the Gaza Strip) that make up the State of Palestine. A landlocked territory near the coast of the Mediter ...
,
Gaza Strip The Gaza Strip, also known simply as Gaza, is a small territory located on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea; it is the smaller of the two Palestinian territories, the other being the West Bank, that make up the State of Palestine. I ...
,
East Jerusalem East Jerusalem (, ; , ) is the portion of Jerusalem that was Jordanian annexation of the West Bank, held by Jordan after the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, as opposed to West Jerusalem, which was held by Israel. Captured and occupied in 1967, th ...
and the Golan Heights as being territories occupied by Israel. In June 2021, the Biden administration affirmed that it will continue to maintain the previous administration's policy of recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights.


UNDOF supervision

UNDOF, the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force, was established in 1974 to supervise the implementation of the Agreement on Disengagement and maintain the ceasefire with an area of separation known as the UNDOF Zone. Currently there are more than 1,000 UN peacekeepers there trying to sustain a peace. Syria and Israel still contest the ownership of the Heights but have not used overt military force since 1974. The great strategic value of the Heights both militarily and as a source of water means that a deal is uncertain. Members of the UN Disengagement force are usually the only individuals who cross the Israeli–Syrian de facto border (cease fire "Alpha Line"), but since 1988 Israel has allowed Druze pilgrims to cross into Syria to visit the shrine of
Abel Abel ( ''Hébel'', in pausa ''Hā́ḇel''; ''Hábel''; , ''Hābēl'') is a biblical figure in the Book of Genesis within the Abrahamic religions. Born as the second son of Adam and Eve, the first two humans created by God in Judaism, God, he ...
on
Mount Qasioun Mount Qasioun () is a mountain overlooking the city of Damascus, Syria. It has a range of restaurants, from which the whole city can be viewed. Due to its high elevation, several communications and broadcasting networks constructed relay stat ...
. Since 1967, Druze brides have been allowed to cross into Syria, although they do so in the knowledge that they may not be able to return. Though the cease fire in the UNDOF zone has been largely uninterrupted since the seventies, in 2012 there were repeated violations from the Syrian side, including tanks and live gunfire, though these incidents are attributed to the ongoing Syrian Civil War rather than intentionally directed towards Israel. On 15 October 2018 the Quneitra border crossing between the Golan Heights and Syria reopened for United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) personnel after four years of closure.


Syrian villages

The population of the Golan Heights prior to the 1967 Six-Day War has been estimated between 130,000 and 145,000, including 17,000 Palestinian refugees registered with UNRWA.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 th
Report of the Secretary-General under General Assembly resolution 2252 (ES-V) and Security Council resolution 237 (1967)
, pg. 14. 15 September 1967.)
Between 80,000 and 130,000The Arab Centre for Human Rights in the Golan Heights: NGO Report
, pg. 3. 25 January 2007. 90,000 according to Israeli sources and 115,000 according to Syrian sources, which included 17,000 Palestinian refugees registered with UNRWA, cited in th
Report of the Secretary-General under General Assembly resolution 2252 (ES-V) and Security Council resolution 237 (1967
, pg. 14. 15 September 1967.)
Syrians fled or were driven from the Heights during the Six-Day War and around 7,000 remained in the Israeli-held territory in six villages:
Majdal Shams Majdal Shams (; ) is a predominantly Druze town in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, located in the southern foothills of Mount Hermon. It is known as the informal "capital" of the region. Majdal Shams played a significant role in the Great ...
,
Mas'ade Mas'ade (, ) is a Druze village in the northern Golan Heights, Syria. It covers an area of , and in had a population of . It was given the status of a local council in 1982. Its inhabitants are mostly Syrian citizens and have permanent residency ...
,
Buq'ata Buq'ata (; ) is a Druze town, administered as a Local council (Israel), local council, in the northern section of the Israeli-occupied territories, Israeli-occupied portion of the Golan Heights. Buq'ata covers an area of 7,000 dunams (7 km² ...
,
Ein Qiniyye Ein Qiniyye or 'Ayn Qunya (; ) is a Druze village in the Israeli-occupied southern foothills of Mount Hermon, 750 meters above sea level. It was granted local council status in 1982. Its inhabitants are mostly Syrian citizens with permanent ...
, Ghajar and Shayta. Before the 1967 war, Christians comprised 12% of the total population of the Golan Heights. The vast majority of Christians migrated with the rest of the population after Israel's occupation of the Golan, leaving only a few small Christian families in Majdal Shams and Ein Qiniyye. Israel forcibly expelled Syrians from the Golan Heights. There were also instances of Israeli soldiers killing Syrian residents including blowing up their home with people inside. Israel demolished over one hundred Syrian villages and farms in the Golan Heights."The Fate of Abandoned Arab Villages, 1965–1969" by Aron Shai (History & Memory – Volume 18, Number 2, Fall/Winter 2006, pp. 86–106) "As the pace of the surveys increased in the West Bank, widespread operations also began on the Golan Heights, which had been captured from Syria during the war (figure 7). Dan Urman, whose official title was Head of Surveying and Demolition Supervision for the Golan Heights, was in charge of this task. Urman submitted a list of 127 villages for demolition to his bosses. ... The demolitions were executed by contractors hired for the job. Financial arrangements and coordination with the ILA and the army were recorded in detail. Davidson commissioned surveys and demolition supervision from the IASS srael Archaeological Survey Society Thus, for example, in a letter dated 15 May 1968, he wrote to Ze'ev Yavin: 'Further to our meeting, this is to inform you that within a few days we will start demolishing about 90 abandoned villages on the Golan Heights (see attached list)." After the demolitions, the lands were given to Israeli settlers. Quneitra was the largest town in the Golan Heights until 1967, with a population of 27,000. It was occupied by Israel on the last day of the Six-Day War and handed back to Syrian civil control per the 1974 Disengagement Agreement. But the Israelis had destroyed Quneitra with dynamite and bulldozers before they withdrew from the city. East of the 1973 ceasefire line, in the Syrian controlled part of the Golan Heights, an area of , are more than 40 Syrian towns and villages, including Quneitra, Khan Arnabah, al-Hamidiyah, al-Rafid, al-Samdaniyah, al-Mudariyah, Beer Ajam, Bariqa, Ghadir al-Bustan, Hader, Juba, Kodana, Ufaniyah, Ruwayhinah, Nabe' al-Sakhar, Trinjah, Umm al-A'zam, and Umm Batna. The population of the
Quneitra Governorate 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 ...
numbers 79,000. Once annexing the Golan Heights in 1981, the Israeli government offered all non-Israelis living in the Golan citizenship, but until the early 21st century fewer than 10% of the Druze were Israeli citizens; the remainder held Syrian citizenship. The Golan
Alawites Alawites () are an Arab ethnoreligious group who live primarily in the Levant region in West Asia and follow Alawism, a sect of Islam that splintered from early Shia as a ''ghulat'' branch during the ninth century. Alawites venerate Ali ...
in the village of Ghajar accepted Israeli citizenship in 1981.Ghajar says `don't fence me in'
In 2012, due to the situation in Syria, young Druze have applied to Israeli citizenship in much larger numbers than in previous years. In 2012, there were 20,000
Druze The Druze ( ; , ' or ', , '), who Endonym and exonym, call themselves al-Muwaḥḥidūn (), are an Arabs, Arab Eastern esotericism, esoteric Religious denomination, religious group from West Asia who adhere to the Druze faith, an Abrahamic ...
with Syrian citizenship living in the Israeli-occupied portion Golan Heights. The Druze living in the Golan Heights are permanent residents of Israel. They hold laissez-passer documents issued by the Israeli government, and enjoy the country's social-welfare benefits. The pro-Israeli Druze were historically ostracized by the pro-Syrian Druze. Reluctance to accept citizenship also reflects fear of ill treatment or displacement by Syrian authorities should the Golan Heights eventually be returned to Syria. According to ''
The Independent ''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publis ...
'', most Druze in the Golan Heights live relatively comfortable lives in a freer society than they would have in Syria under Assad's government. According to Egypt's '' Daily Star'', their standard of living vastly surpasses that of their counterparts on the Syrian side of the border. Hence their fear of a return to Syria, though most of them identify themselves as Syrian, but feel alienated from the "
autocratic Autocracy is a form of government in which absolute power is held by the head of state and Head of government, government, known as an autocrat. It includes some forms of monarchy and all forms of dictatorship, while it is contrasted with demo ...
" government in Damascus. According to the
Associated Press The Associated Press (AP) is an American not-for-profit organization, not-for-profit news agency headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association, and produces news reports that are dist ...
, "many young Druse have been quietly relieved at the failure of previous Syrian–Israeli peace talks to go forward." On the other hand, expressing pro-Syrian viewpoint, ''
The Economist ''The Economist'' is a British newspaper published weekly in printed magazine format and daily on Electronic publishing, digital platforms. It publishes stories on topics that include economics, business, geopolitics, technology and culture. M ...
'' represents the Golan Druzes' view that by doing so they may be potentially rewarded by Syria, while simultaneously risking nothing in Israel's freewheeling society. ''The Economist'' likewise reported that "Some optimists see the future Golan as a sort of Hong Kong, continuing to enjoy the perks of Israel's dynamic economy and
open society Open society () is a term coined by French-Jewish philosopher Henri Bergson in 1932, and describes a dynamic system inclined to moral universalism.Thomas Mautner (2005), 2nd ed. ''The Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy'' Open society" entry p. ...
, while coming back under the sovereignty of a stricter, less developed Syria." The Druze are also reportedly well-educated and relatively prosperous, and have made use of Israel's universities. Since 1988, Druze clerics have been permitted to make annual religious pilgrimages to Syria. Since 2005, Israel has allowed Druze farmers to export some 11,000 tons of apples to the rest of Syria each year, constituting the first commercial relations between Syria and Israel.Golan's Druse Wary of Israel and Syria
3 June 2007
In the first years after the breakout of the Syrian Civil War in 2012, the number of applications for Israeli citizenship grew, although Syrian loyalty remained strong and those who applied for citizenship were often ostracized by members of the older generation. In recent years, the number of applications for citizenship has increased, 239 in 2021 and 206 in the first half of 2022. A total of 419 citizenship applications were approved in 2022. In 2023, a further 389 citizenship applications were granted, followed by 318 in the first 11 months of 2024. By the end of 2024, official Israeli figures suggest that of approximately 29,000 Druze living in the Golan Heights, about 6,000 (or 20.45 percent) were Israeli citizens. Demographic map of the Golan Heights - Before 1967 - Legend.png, A demographic map of Quneitra Governorate (Golan Heights) before the 1967 six day war Demographic map of the Golan Heights - Legend.png, A demographic map of Quneitra Governorate (Golan Heights) today. Excludes any permanent depopulation or repopulation that might have happened during the Syrian civil war Demographic map of the Golan Heights and Syrian localities depopulated during and after the 1967 War - Legend.png, A demographic map of Quneitra Governorate (Golan Heights) overlaid with the location of the depopulated Syrian localities


Israeli settlements

Israeli settlement Israeli settlements, also called Israeli colonies, are the civilian communities built by Israel throughout the Israeli-occupied territories. They are populated by Israeli citizens, almost exclusively of Israeli Jews, Jewish identity or ethni ...
activity began in the 1970s. The area was governed by military administration until 1981 when Israel passed the Golan Heights Law, which extended Israeli law and administration throughout the territory. This move was condemned by the
United Nations Security Council The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations (UN) and is charged with ensuring international peace and security, recommending the admission of new UN members to the General Assembly, an ...
in UN Resolution 497, although Israel states it has a right to retain the area, citing the text of UN Resolution 242, adopted after the Six-Day War, which calls for "safe and recognised boundaries free from threats or acts of force". The continued Israeli control of the Golan Heights remains controversial and is still regarded as an occupation by most countries other than
Israel Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...
and the
United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...
. Israeli settlements and human rights policy in the occupied territory have drawn criticism from the UN. The Israeli-occupied territory is administered by the Golan Regional Council, based in Katzrin, which has a population of 7,600. There are another 19
moshav A moshav (, plural ', "settlement, village") is a type of Israeli village or town or Jewish settlement, in particular a type of cooperative agricultural community of individual farms pioneered by the Labour Zionists between 1904 and 1 ...
im and 10
kibbutz A kibbutz ( / , ; : kibbutzim / ) is an intentional community in Israel that was traditionally based on agriculture. The first kibbutz, established in 1910, was Degania Alef, Degania. Today, farming has been partly supplanted by other economi ...
im. In 1989, the Israeli settler population was 10,000. By 2010 the Israeli settler population had expanded to 20,000Regions and territories: The Golan Heights
''BBC''
living in 32 settlements.Oudat, Base

, ''Al-Ahram Weekly'', 12–18 June 2008. Issue No. 901.
By 2019 it had expanded to 22,000. In 2021, the Israeli settler population was estimated to be 25,000 with plans by the Government of Prime Minister Naftali Bennett to double that population over a five-year period. On 23 April 2019, Israel Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu Benjamin Netanyahu (born 21 October 1949) is an Israeli politician who has served as the prime minister of Israel since 2022, having previously held the office from 1996 to 1999 and from 2009 to 2021. Netanyahu is the longest-serving prime min ...
announced that he would bring a resolution for government approval to name a new community in the Golan Heights after U.S. President Donald Trump. The planned settlement was unveiled as Trump Heights on 16 June 2019. Further plans for settlement expansion on the Golan were part of the agenda of Benjamin Netanyahu's incoming coalition in 2023. In December 2024, Prime Minister Netanyahu announced an updated plan to further expand settlements on the Golan Heights. As of the end of 2024, the Israeli settler population was estimated to be about 31,000 people.


Geography


Geology

The plateau that Israel controls is part of a larger area of volcanic
basalt Basalt (; ) is an aphanite, aphanitic (fine-grained) extrusive igneous rock formed from the rapid cooling of low-viscosity lava rich in magnesium and iron (mafic lava) exposed at or very near the planetary surface, surface of a terrestrial ...
fields stretching north and east that were created in the series of volcanic eruptions that began recently in geological terms, almost 4 million years ago. The rock forming the mountainous area in the northern Golan Heights, descending from Mount Hermon, differs geologically from the volcanic rocks of the plateau and has a different
physiography Physical geography (also known as physiography) is one of the three main branches of geography. Physical geography is the branch of natural science which deals with the processes and patterns in the natural environment such as the atmosphere, h ...
. The mountains are characterised by lighter-colored,
Jurassic The Jurassic ( ) is a Geological period, geologic period and System (stratigraphy), stratigraphic system that spanned from the end of the Triassic Period million years ago (Mya) to the beginning of the Cretaceous Period, approximately 143.1 Mya. ...
-age
limestone Limestone is a type of carbonate rock, carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material Lime (material), lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different Polymorphism (materials science) ...
of
sedimentary Sedimentary rocks are types of rock formed by the cementation of sediments—i.e. particles made of minerals (geological detritus) or organic matter (biological detritus)—that have been accumulated or deposited at Earth's surface. Sedime ...
origin. Locally, the limestone is broken by faults and solution channels to form a karst-like topography in which springs are common. Geologically, the Golan plateau and the
Hauran The Hauran (; also spelled ''Hawran'' or ''Houran'') is a region that spans parts of southern Syria and northern Jordan. It is bound in the north by the Ghouta oasis, to the northeast by the al-Safa field, to the east and south by the Harrat ...
plain In geography, a plain, commonly known as flatland, is a flat expanse of land that generally does not change much in elevation, and is primarily treeless. Plains occur as lowlands along valleys or at the base of mountains, as coastal plains, and ...
to the east constitute a
Holocene The Holocene () is the current geologic time scale, geological epoch, beginning approximately 11,700 years ago. It follows the Last Glacial Period, which concluded with the Holocene glacial retreat. The Holocene and the preceding Pleistocene to ...
volcanic field A volcanic field is an area of Earth's Earth's crust, crust that is prone to localized volcano, volcanic activity. The type and number of volcanoes required to be called a "field" is not well-defined. Volcanic fields usually consist of clusters ...
that also extends northeast almost to
Damascus Damascus ( , ; ) is the capital and List of largest cities in the Levant region by population, largest city of Syria. It is the oldest capital in the world and, according to some, the fourth Holiest sites in Islam, holiest city in Islam. Kno ...
. Much of the area is scattered with
dormant volcano A volcano is commonly defined as a vent or fissure in the crust of a planetary-mass object, such as Earth, that allows hot lava, volcanic ash, and gases to escape from a magma chamber below the surface. On Earth, volcanoes are most often ...
s, as well as cinder cones, such as
Majdal Shams Majdal Shams (; ) is a predominantly Druze town in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, located in the southern foothills of Mount Hermon. It is known as the informal "capital" of the region. Majdal Shams played a significant role in the Great ...
. The plateau also contains a crater lake, called Birkat Ram ("Ram Pool"), which is fed by both
surface runoff Surface runoff (also known as overland flow or terrestrial runoff) is the unconfined flow of water over the ground surface, in contrast to ''channel runoff'' (or ''stream flow''). It occurs when excess rainwater, stormwater, meltwater, or other ...
and underground springs. These volcanic areas are characterised by
basalt Basalt (; ) is an aphanite, aphanitic (fine-grained) extrusive igneous rock formed from the rapid cooling of low-viscosity lava rich in magnesium and iron (mafic lava) exposed at or very near the planetary surface, surface of a terrestrial ...
bedrock and dark soils derived from its
weathering Weathering is the deterioration of rocks, soils and minerals (as well as wood and artificial materials) through contact with water, atmospheric gases, sunlight, and biological organisms. It occurs '' in situ'' (on-site, with little or no move ...
. The basalt flows overlie older, distinctly lighter-colored limestones and
marl Marl is an earthy material rich in carbonate minerals, Clay minerals, clays, and silt. When Lithification, hardened into rock, this becomes marlstone. It is formed in marine or freshwater environments, often through the activities of algae. M ...
s, exposed along the Yarmouk River in the south.


Boundaries

The geographic definition of the Golan varies but is generally defined as the area bound by the Jordan Valley to the west, which separates it from the
Galilee Galilee (; ; ; ) is a region located in northern Israel and southern Lebanon consisting of two parts: the Upper Galilee (, ; , ) and the Lower Galilee (, ; , ). ''Galilee'' encompasses the area north of the Mount Carmel-Mount Gilboa ridge and ...
in Israel, the Yarmouk River to the south, which separates it from the Jabal Ajlun region in Jordan, and the Sa'ar stream (a tributary of Nahal Hermon/Nahr Baniyas) to the north which separates it from
Mount Hermon Mount Hermon ( / ALA-LC: ('Mountain of the Sheikh', ), , ) is a mountain, mountain cluster constituting the southern end of the Anti-Lebanon mountain range. Its summit straddles the Lebanon–Syria border, border between Syria and Lebanon a ...
and the Hula Valley close to the border with Lebanon. The natural eastern boundary of the region is alternatively placed at the Ruqqad river or the Allan river further east, which separate the Golan from the
Hauran The Hauran (; also spelled ''Hawran'' or ''Houran'') is a region that spans parts of southern Syria and northern Jordan. It is bound in the north by the Ghouta oasis, to the northeast by the al-Safa field, to the east and south by the Harrat ...
plain of Syria.


Size

The plateau's north–south length is approximately and its east–west width varies from .United States, Central Intelligence Agency, Golan Heights and Vicinity : Oct 199

Israel has captured, according to its own data, .CBS, Statistical Abstract of Israel 201
AREA OF DISTRICTS, SUB-DISTRICTS, NATURAL REGIONS AND LAKES
(table 1.1)
According to Syria, the Golan Heights measures , of which are occupied by Israel. According to the CIA, Israel holds .


Topography

The area is hilly and elevated, overlooking the
Jordan Rift Valley The Jordan Rift Valley, also Jordan Valley ( ''Bīqʿāt haYardēn'', Al-Ghor or Al-Ghawr), is an elongated endorheic basin located in modern-day Israel, Jordan and the West Bank, Palestine. This geographic region includes the entire length o ...
which contains the
Sea of Galilee The Sea of Galilee (, Judeo-Aramaic languages, Judeo-Aramaic: יַמּא דטבריא, גִּנֵּיסַר, ), also called Lake Tiberias, Genezareth Lake or Kinneret, is a freshwater lake in Israel. It is the lowest freshwater lake on Earth ...
and the
Jordan River The Jordan River or River Jordan (, ''Nahr al-ʾUrdunn''; , ''Nəhar hayYardēn''), also known as ''Nahr Al-Sharieat'' (), is a endorheic river in the Levant that flows roughly north to south through the Sea of Galilee and drains to the Dead ...
, and is itself dominated by the tall
Mount Hermon Mount Hermon ( / ALA-LC: ('Mountain of the Sheikh', ), , ) is a mountain, mountain cluster constituting the southern end of the Anti-Lebanon mountain range. Its summit straddles the Lebanon–Syria border, border between Syria and Lebanon a ...
. The Sea of Galilee at the southwest corner of the plateau and the Yarmouk River to the south are at elevations well below sea level (the sea of Galilee at about ). Topographically, the Golan Heights is a plateau with an average altitude of , rising northwards toward Mount Hermon and sloping down to about elevation along the Yarmouk River in the south. The steeper, more rugged topography is generally limited to the northern half, including the foothills of Mount Hermon; on the south the plateau is more level. There are several small peaks on the Golan Heights, most of them volcanic cones, such as Mount Agas (), Mount Dov/Jebel Rous (; northern peak ), Mount Bental () and opposite it Mount Avital (), Mount Ram (), and Tal Saki ().


Subdivisions

The broader Golan plateau exhibits a more subdued topography, generally ranging between in elevation. In Israel, the Golan plateau is divided into three regions: northern (between the Sa'ar and Jilabun valleys), central (between the Jilabun and Daliyot valleys), and southern (between the Daliyot and Yarmouk valleys). The Golan Heights is bordered on the west by a rock escarpment that drops to the Jordan River valley and the
Sea of Galilee The Sea of Galilee (, Judeo-Aramaic languages, Judeo-Aramaic: יַמּא דטבריא, גִּנֵּיסַר, ), also called Lake Tiberias, Genezareth Lake or Kinneret, is a freshwater lake in Israel. It is the lowest freshwater lake on Earth ...
. In the south, the incised Yarmouk River valley marks the limits of the plateau and, east of the abandoned railroad bridge upstream of Hamat Gader and Al Hammah, it marks the recognised international border between Syria and Jordan.


Climate and hydrology

In addition to its strategic military importance, the Golan Heights is an important
water resource Water resources are natural resources of water that are potentially useful for humans, for example as a source of drinking water supply or irrigation water. These resources can be either freshwater from natural sources, or water produced artificia ...
, especially at the higher elevations, which are snow-covered in the winter and help sustain
baseflow Baseflow (also called drought flow, groundwater recession flow, low flow, low-water flow, low-water discharge and sustained or fair-weather runoff) is the portion of the streamflow that is sustained between precipitation events, fed to streams by d ...
for rivers and springs during the dry season. The Heights receive significantly more precipitation than the surrounding, lower-elevation areas. The occupied sector of the Golan Heights provides or controls a substantial portion of the water in the
Jordan River The Jordan River or River Jordan (, ''Nahr al-ʾUrdunn''; , ''Nəhar hayYardēn''), also known as ''Nahr Al-Sharieat'' (), is a endorheic river in the Levant that flows roughly north to south through the Sea of Galilee and drains to the Dead ...
watershed, which in turn provides a portion of Israel's water supply. The Golan Heights supplies 15% of Israel's water.


Landmarks

The Golan Heights features numerous archeological sites, mountains, streams and waterfalls. Throughout the region 25 ancient synagogues have been found dating back to the Roman and Byzantine periods. * Banias (; ) is an ancient site that developed around a spring once associated with the Greek god Pan. Near the archaeological site is the Banias Waterfall, one of the most powerful waterfalls in the region, plunging about 10 meters into a pool surrounded by lush vegetation. Part of the stream is accessible via a 100-meter-long suspended walkway. * Deir Qeruh (; ) is a ruined
Byzantine The Byzantine Empire, also known as the Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire centred on Constantinople during late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Having survived the events that caused the fall of the Western Roman E ...
-period and Syrian village. Founded in the 4th century AD, it has a monastery and church of
St George Saint George (;Geʽez: ጊዮርጊስ, , ka, გიორგი, , , died 23 April 303), also George of Lydda, was an early Christian martyr who is venerated as a saint in Christianity. According to holy tradition, he was a soldier in the R ...
from the 6th century. The church has a square apse – a feature known from ancient Syria and Jordan, but not present in churches west of the
Jordan River The Jordan River or River Jordan (, ''Nahr al-ʾUrdunn''; , ''Nəhar hayYardēn''), also known as ''Nahr Al-Sharieat'' (), is a endorheic river in the Levant that flows roughly north to south through the Sea of Galilee and drains to the Dead ...
. * Kursi (; ) is an archaeological site and national park on the shore of the Sea of Galilee at the foothills of the Golan, containing the ruins of a Byzantine Christian monastery connected to the
Gospels Gospel originally meant the Christian message (" the gospel"), but in the second century AD the term (, from which the English word originated as a calque) came to be used also for the books in which the message was reported. In this sen ...
( Gergesa). * Katzrin (; ) is the administrative and commercial center of the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.
Katzrin Ancient Village The Katzrin ancient village and synagogue () is an open-air museum located in the Golan Heights on the outskirts of the Israeli settlement of Katzrin on the #Ottoman_Syria,_French_Mandate_for_Syria_and_Independent_Syria, depopulated Syrian villag ...
is an archaeological site on the outskirts of Katzrin where the remains of a Talmud-era village and synagogue have been reconstructed. The site has been described by an archeologist as being developed: "with a clear agenda and nationalistic narrative." It has also been criticized for distorting historical items and showing a selective part of history, focusing on the Jewish period leaving out the Mamluk and Syrian periods. Golan Archaeological Museum hosts archaeological finds uncovered in the Golan Heights from prehistoric times. A special focus concerns Gamla and excavations of synagogues and Byzantine churches. * Gamla Nature Reserve () is an open park with the archaeological remains of the ancient Jewish city of Gamla (, ) — including a tower, wall and synagogue. It is also the site of a large waterfall, an ancient Byzantine church, and a panoramic spot to observe the nearly 100 vultures that dwell in the cliffs. Israeli scientists study the vultures and tourists can watch them fly and nest.Antiquities
.
*A
ski resort A ski resort is a resort developed for skiing, snowboarding, and other winter sports. In Europe, most ski resorts are towns or villages in or adjacent to a ski area–a mountainous area with pistes (ski trails) and a ski lift system. In North Am ...
on the slopes of
Mount Hermon Mount Hermon ( / ALA-LC: ('Mountain of the Sheikh', ), , ) is a mountain, mountain cluster constituting the southern end of the Anti-Lebanon mountain range. Its summit straddles the Lebanon–Syria border, border between Syria and Lebanon a ...
(; ) features a wide range of ski trails and activities. Several restaurants are located in the area. The
Lake Ram Lake Ram ( and Birkat el-Ram. ) is a crater lake (maar) in the northeastern Golan Heights near the village of Mas'ade and Mount Hermon. History Josephus referred to it as Lake Phiala. The sources of the lake are rain water and an underground sp ...
crater lake is nearby. * Hippos (; ) is an ancient Greco-Roman city, known in
Arabic Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...
as and in
Aramaic Aramaic (; ) is a Northwest Semitic language that originated in the ancient region of Syria and quickly spread to Mesopotamia, the southern Levant, Sinai, southeastern Anatolia, and Eastern Arabia, where it has been continually written a ...
as . The archaeological site includes excavations of the city's forum, the small imperial cult temple, a large Hellenistic temple compound, the Roman city gates, and two Byzantine churches. *The Nimrod Fortress (; ) was built against the
Crusaders The Crusades were a series of religious wars initiated, supported, and at times directed by the Papacy during the Middle Ages. The most prominent of these were the campaigns to the Holy Land aimed at reclaiming Jerusalem and its surrounding ...
, served the
Ayyubids The Ayyubid dynasty (), also known as the Ayyubid Sultanate, was the founding dynasty of the medieval Sultanate of Egypt established by Saladin in 1171, following his abolition of the Fatimid Caliphate of Egypt. A Sunni Muslim of Kurdish ori ...
and Mamluks, and was captured only once, in 1260, by the
Mongols Mongols are an East Asian ethnic group native to Mongolia, China ( Inner Mongolia and other 11 autonomous territories), as well as the republics of Buryatia and Kalmykia in Russia. The Mongols are the principal member of the large family o ...
. It is now located inside a nature reserve. *
Rujm el-Hiri Rujm el-Hiri (; ) is an ancient stone, or megalithic, structure consisting of concentric circles of stone with a tumulus, a mound of earth and stone, at center. It is located in the Golan Heights some east of the coast of the Sea of Galilee, ...
(; ) is a large circular stone monument. Excavations since 1968 have not uncovered material remains common to archaeological sites in the region. Archaeologists believe the site may have been a ritual center linked to a cult of the dead. A 3D model of the site exists in the Museum of Golan Antiquities in Katzrin. * Senaim (; ) is an
archaeological Archaeology or archeology is the study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of Artifact (archaeology), artifacts, architecture, biofact (archaeology), biofacts or ecofacts, ...
site in northern Golan Heights that includes both Roman and
Ancient Greek Ancient Greek (, ; ) includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the classical antiquity, ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Greek ...
temples.
Byzantine The Byzantine Empire, also known as the Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire centred on Constantinople during late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Having survived the events that caused the fall of the Western Roman E ...
and
Mamluk Mamluk or Mamaluk (; (singular), , ''mamālīk'' (plural); translated as "one who is owned", meaning "slave") were non-Arab, ethnically diverse (mostly Turkic, Caucasian, Eastern and Southeastern European) enslaved mercenaries, slave-so ...
coins have also been found at this site. * Tell Hadar () is an
Aramean The Arameans, or Aramaeans (; ; , ), were a tribal Semitic people in the ancient Near East, first documented in historical sources from the late 12th century BCE. Their homeland, often referred to as the land of Aram, originally covered ce ...
archaeological site An archaeological site is a place (or group of physical sites) in which evidence of past activity is preserved (either prehistoric or recorded history, historic or contemporary), and which has been, or may be, investigated using the discipline ...
. * Umm el-Qanatir (; , ) is another impressive set of standing ruins of a village of the
Byzantine The Byzantine Empire, also known as the Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire centred on Constantinople during late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Having survived the events that caused the fall of the Western Roman E ...
era. The site includes a very large synagogue and two arches next to a natural spring.Kanatir
, TAU.


Economy


Viticulture

On a visit to Israel and the Golan Heights in 1972, Cornelius Ough, a professor of
viticulture Viticulture (, "vine-growing"), viniculture (, "wine-growing"), or winegrowing is the cultivation and harvesting of grapes. It is a branch of the science of horticulture. While the native territory of ''Vitis vinifera'', the common grape vine ...
and
oenology Oenology (also enology; ) is the science and study of wine and winemaking. Oenology is distinct from viticulture, which is the science of the growing, cultivation, and harvesting of grapes. The English word oenology derives from the Greek word ' ...
at the
University of California, Davis The University of California, Davis (UC Davis, UCD, or Davis) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Davis, California, United States. It is the northernmost of the ten campuses of the University ...
, pronounced conditions in the Golan very suitable for the cultivation of wine grapes. A consortium of four kibbutzim and four moshavim took up the challenge, clearing 250 burnt-out tanks in the Golan's Valley of Tears to plant vineyards for what would eventually become the Golan Heights Winery. The first vines were planted in 1976, and the first wine was released by the winery in 1983. , The Heights are home to about a dozen wineries.


Oil and gas exploration

In the early 1990s, the Israel National Oil Company (INOC) was granted shaft-sinking permits in the Golan Heights. It estimated a recovery potential of two million barrels of oil, equivalent at the time to $24 million. During the
Yitzhak Rabin Yitzhak Rabin (; , ; 1 March 1922 – 4 November 1995) was an Israeli politician, statesman and general. He was the prime minister of Israel, serving two terms in office, 1974–1977, and from 1992 until Assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, his ass ...
administration (1992–1995), the permits were suspended as efforts were undertaken to restart peace negotiations between Israel and Syria. In 1996, Benjamin Netanyahu granted preliminary approval to INOC to proceed with oil exploration drilling in the Golan. INOC began undergoing a process of privatization in 1997, overseen by then-Director of the Government Companies Authority (GCA),
Tzipi Livni Tziporah Malka "Tzipi" Livni (, ; born 8 July 1958) is an Israeli politician, diplomat and lawyer. A former member of the Knesset and leader in the center-left political camp, Livni is a former Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Israel), foreign mini ...
. During that time, it was decided that INOC's drilling permits would be returned to the state. In 2012, National Infrastructure Minister Uzi Landau approved exploratory drilling for oil and natural gas in the Golan. The following year, the Petroleum Council of Israel's Ministry of Energy and Water Resources secretly awarded a drilling license covering half the area of the Golan Heights to a local subsidiary of
New Jersey New Jersey is a U.S. state, state located in both the Mid-Atlantic States, Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern United States, Northeastern regions of the United States. Located at the geographic hub of the urban area, heavily urbanized Northeas ...
–based Genie Energy Ltd. headed by
Effi Eitam Efraim "Effi" Eitam (; born 25 July 1952) is an Israeli brigadier general, former commander of the 91st Division, and politician. A former leader of the National Religious Party, he later led a breakaway faction, Ahi, which merged into Likud ...
. Human rights groups have said that the drilling violates international law, as the Golan Heights are an occupied territory. On 18 November 2021, the United Nations Second Committee approved a draft resolution that demanded that: "Israel, the occupying Power, cease the exploitation, damage, cause of loss or depletion and endangerment of the natural resources in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and in the occupied Syrian Golan".


Tourism

In April 2025, the IDF and regional civilian authorities started to organise tourist trips to the areas occupied after the 2024 invasion. The first trips sold out quickly.


See also


Explanatory notes


References


Bibliography

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *


External links


The Syrian Golan
– Permanent Mission of the Syrian Arab Republic to the United Nations
Jawlan.org

Gaulonitis
in The unedited full text of the 1906 ''
Jewish Encyclopedia ''The Jewish Encyclopedia: A Descriptive Record of the History, Religion, Literature, and Customs of the Jewish People from the Earliest Times to the Present Day'' is an English-language encyclopedia containing over 15,000 articles on the ...
''
Golan, Gaulonitis
in the '' International Standard Bible Encyclopedia''
QatzrinWhat is the dispute over the Golan Heights?


from Washington Report {{Authority control Syria in the Arab–Israeli conflict Quneitra Governorate Syrian civil war Great Rift Valley Lava plateaus Volcanic fields Disputed territories in Asia Territorial disputes of Israel Israeli-occupied territories Territorial disputes of Syria Israel–Syria border Geography of the Middle East