What are the Golan Heights? The Disputed Territory, Explained

What are the Golan Heights? The Disputed Territory, Explained
The Golan Heights is a piece of high ground in one of the most conflict-prone places on Earth. That’s made it a focus of global dispute since Israel seized the plateau from Syria in the 1967 Middle East War. In the latest flareup there, a rocket attack from Lebanon killed 12 civilians at a football field and risked triggering the all-out war between Israel and the Lebanese militia Hezbollah that’s been looming for months.
What is the Golan Heights?
Located in the southwest tip of Syria, the Golan Heights covers about 1,800 square kilometers (700 square miles), with about two-thirds under Israel’s control. The Golan shares a border with Lebanon, Jordan and Israel, and its rocky plateau towers over the Israeli valley to the west. When Syria controlled the high ground, its military regularly used it to shell Israeli communities below. Israel’s possession of the territory gives its military a clear view of southern Syria all the way to the capital, Damascus, 60 kilometers (40 miles) away, enabling it to monitor troop movements. The Golan offers fertile land - Israelis grow grapes there for wine - and an important source of water.
Why does Israel control it?
Israel wrested control of the territory in the 1967 war, in which it fought the Arab states of Egypt, Syria and Jordan, all of which had rejected the establishment of a Jewish state in 1948. Israel also captured the West Bank and east Jerusalem from Jordanian forces and the Gaza Strip from Egyptian forces. In 1981, under Prime Minister Menachem Begin, Israel annexed the Golan Heights, a move that was not recognized internationally. In 2019, the US, under then President Donald Trump, controversially recognized Israeli sovereignty there.
What is Syria’s position?
Syria wants the territory back. Beginning in the 1990s it periodically engaged in direct or indirect negotiations under which Israel would return part or all of its Golan holdings in return for a peace treaty with Syria. Such talks came to a halt with the Arab uprisings of 2011 that led to a bloody civil war in Syria. That all but eradicated any Israeli willingness to consider returning the strategic plateau to the regime of President Bashar Al-Assad.
Who lives in the Golan Heights now?
Many residents of the heights fled the Israeli conquerors in 1967; today, the government says more than 40,000 people live in the Golan. About half are Jewish settlers who have moved in since Israel captured the territory. The rest were residents before the 1967 war or are their descendants - a majority of them members of the Druze faith. The Druze village of Majdal Shams was the site of the July 27 rocket attack.
What happened in the rocket attack?
According to the Israeli military, an Iranian rocket carrying a 50 kg warhead hit a soccer field filled mostly with children and young adults. Israel says it has clear evidence the rocket was fired by Hezbollah, which is backed by Iran; the group denies responsibility. The attack was by far the deadliest for civilians south of the Lebanese border since October when Israel and Hezbollah began exchanging almost daily fire after war broke out between Israel and the militant Palestinian group Hamas.
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