ALA-LC
ALA-LC (American Library AssociationLibrary of Congress) is a set of standards for romanization, the representation of text in other writing systems using the Latin script.
Applications
The system is used to represent bibliographic information by ...
: ''Ḡūṭat Dimašq'') is a countryside area in southwestern
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 ...
that surrounds the city of
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 ...
along its eastern and southern rim.
Name
Ghouta is an Arabic term (''ghuta'') for 'garden'.
Geography
The Ghouta is an
oasis
In ecology, an oasis (; : oases ) is a fertile area of a desert or semi-desert environmentBarada River, as its waters flow east of Mount Qasioun, and its seven tributaries. It surrounds the city of
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 ...
. To the east and south of the Ghouta lies the Marj plain, which forms a narrow belt of fields, and south of that lies the Hauran plain. The Barada River Valley borders the Ghouta to the northeast. The area north of the Ghouta is less fertile and eventually desolate hill country. To the west of the region is the Anti-Lebanon Mountains.
The Ghouta is historically the most celebrated 'green zone' (a verdant, fertile area around an urban center) in the
Levant
The Levant ( ) is the subregion that borders the Eastern Mediterranean, Eastern Mediterranean sea to the west, and forms the core of West Asia and the political term, Middle East, ''Middle East''. In its narrowest sense, which is in use toda ...
, according to the historian Beshara Doumani. He also notes that its fame in this regard persists, despite the significant loss of its planted areas to the development of suburban sprawl, extensive highways, and the effects of the Syrian Civil War. It was historically characterized by farming villages, vast gardens, orchards, and vineyards, which stretched up to from the limits of the Old City of Damascus. The lands of the Ghouta were fed by irrigation. These factors distinguished it from the rain-dependent, mainly grain-growing Marj.
The size of the Ghouta has varied considerably at different times and according to different surveys and estimates. In the 20th century, the Syrian journalist Muhammad Kurd Ali approximated that it spanned an area , while a 2000 a survey reported that the region spanned 19,000 hectares.
History
The
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 ...
ite geographer, al-Muqaddasi (d. 991), mentions the Ghouta as being one of the six rural territories belonging to Jund Dimashq (district of Damascus).
Since ancient times, canals dug by Damascenes provided irrigation of land on either side of the Barada, increasing the size of the Ghouta to the south and east of the city. Separating the city from the dry grasslands bordering the
Syrian Desert
The Syrian Desert ( ''Bādiyat Ash-Shām''), also known as the North Arabian Desert, the Jordanian steppe, or the Badiya, is a region of desert, semi-desert, and steppe, covering about of West Asia, including parts of northern Saudi Arabia, ea ...
, the Ghouta has historically provided its inhabitants with a variety of cereals, vegetables, and fruits.
Ottoman period
Throughout much of the 19th century, most of the Ghouta farmlands were held by middle-class, small-scale landholders, who the historian James Reilly terms as "gentleman farmers". This type of land tenure was enabled by "the intensive and commercial nature of irrigated agriculture", according to Doumani. These farmers, part of whom were tenants and the other part possessors of usufruct rights, did not cultivate the lands themselves, but hired laborers with the considerable revenues they derived from their small plots.
In the early 20th century, an estimated three-quarters of the Ghouta's lands were owned by small and medium-sized planters, known as ''zurra'', a rare occurrence among the agricultural regions of the Levant at that time. The remainder of the lands were owned by members of the Damascene urban elite.
French colonial period
The Ghouta was the site of a French offensive against
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 ...
rebels in 1926.
Independent Syria
In 1965, the first small-scale state-owned farm collectives in Syria were established in the Ghouta, afterward spreading to other areas of the country.
Eventually the irrigated agricultural area in the Damascus countryside reached a size of . In the 1980s, urban growth from Damascus started replacing agricultural use with housing and industry, shrinking the green zone.
Before the Syrian Civil War, the area was home to about two million people, but in 2017 the population was estimated to be about 400,000.
Syrian Civil War
Since early in the civil war, civilians in Eastern Ghouta almost entirely sided with the opposition to Syria's government. During the
civil unrest
Civil disorder, also known as civil disturbance, civil unrest, civil strife, or turmoil, are situations when law enforcement and security forces struggle to maintain public order or tranquility.
Causes
Any number of things may cause civil di ...
that began in Syria in March 2011, eastern Ghouta residents joined the protests against 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 ...
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 ...
, the Syrian Arab Army counterattacked and in May 2013 began a siege of Eastern Ghouta.
In mid-2017, the main rebel faction in the area was Jaysh al-Islam, based in Douma (with an estimated 10–15,000 fighters in the region in early 2018). The second largest was Faylaq al-Rahman, an official affiliate of the
Free Syrian Army
The Free Syrian Army (FSA; ) is a Big tent, big-tent coalition of decentralized Syrian opposition (2011–2024), Syrian opposition rebel groups in the Syrian civil war founded on 29 July 2011 by Colonel Riad al-Asaad and six officers who defe ...
(FSA), controlling much of central and western parts of Ghouta, including the Jobar and Ain Terma districts. Ahrar al-Sham (based in Harasta) and Tahrir al-Sham (HTS - controlling smaller districts such as Arbin, Hawsh al-Ashari and Beit Nayim, with an estimated strength in the area of 500 in February 2018Explainer: Who's fighting whom in Syria's Ghouta? BBC Monitoring, 22 February 2018) had a far smaller presence.
The residents described the life under the control of Islamist rebels as "hell" to a
Channel 4
Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by Channel Four Television Corporation. It is state-owned enterprise, publicly owned but, unlike the BBC, it receives no public funding and is funded en ...
correspondent as they were forcibly conscripted, prevented from leaving and had no water and electricity.
In February 2018, the Syrian army launched an operation to dislodge rebels from the area. In early March 2018, the Syrian army had captured 59% of the Eastern Ghouta pocket. On 7 April 2018, at least 48 people were reportedly killed in a chemical attack in Douma, which resulted in an armed response from 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 ...
,
France
France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...
, and the
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...
. On 14 April 2018, the Syrian Army officially declared Eastern Ghouta to be free of militants, securing it under government control.