Fear and uncertainty in Golan Heights as Israeli troops drive deeper into Syria | Syria

On the outskirts of the Druze village of Majdal Shams, high in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, a gate in the fence leads to the supposedly demilitarised buffer zone on the Syrian side. Known as “the Shouting Hill”, local Druze villagers have long gathered here to shout messages – sometimes even marriage proposals – to relatives and friends on the other side.

On Wednesday, four days after Israeli troops seized control of the buffer zone as Syrian rebels took over in Damascus, there were no relatives waiting to receive messages. Instead, four-wheel drive vehicles and tanks continued to pour through the gate, joining the massed ranks of Israeli soldiers operating as far as the eye could see.

On the rocky hillside a kilometre away, next to a house in a grove of trees, Israeli flags could be seen flying as nearby a woman – the only civilian in view – collected wood. Further away still, high on the ridge, there were tanks and a road crew busy widening a dirt track and hardening its surface.

Israel has faced international uproar over its incursion, which it has justified on the grounds that a 1974 disengagement agreement with Syria had “collapsed” with the fall of the Assad regime. The troop movements have been accompanied by a massive IDF air offensive striking hundreds of military targets across the country.

On Wednesday there was no sign that the movements of troops and armour were slowing. Instead, more armour and bulldozers were being moved along main roads heading towards the border zone.

Here on the Golan’s high rocky plateau, the fall of Syria’s dictator Bashar al-Assad has sown complicated and contradictory emotions, and created a startling new reality.

After over a year of war with Hezbollah in Lebanon, during which deadly rocket attacks fell into the Golan villages, Israeli tanks and troops are on the move once again. This time they are heading east rather than north, driving deeper into Syria territory.

The incursion has fuelled anxiety among the Druze over what Syria’s Islamist revolution portends. Most Druze – representing about half of the population of 55,000 – identify as Syrian (and some were pro-Assad), having rejected Israeli citizenship after Israel’s unilateral annexation of the area in 1981.

Even as some Druze took to the streets of villages like Majdal Shams with Syrian flags to celebrate the fall of Assad over the weekend, community security squads who had been released from call-up only days before were quickly reactivated.

“I’m not sure how long the Israelis will stay,” said Shehady Nasrallah, a 57-year-old agronomist who lives in Majdal Shams and whose sister lives in Damascus courtesy of an agreement that once allowed the Druze here to study and marry in Syria and transit the border.

“Months,” he suggested. “Maybe years. No one knows. They want to hold the high points. They had Assad where they wanted him, but now they want to keep the borders quiet by force.

“I was watching last night on television all of the weapons Israel is destroying in Syria. The longest range weapon mentioned was 50 kilometres. It’s not something important from a military point of view. It is about Israel showing it is strong and controlling everything.”

Nasrallah explained the complexities of how Druze felt about Assad. “Every family here has relatives,” he said. “People here were afraid for their relatives in Syria if they stood publicly against Assad.”

For Jewish residents of the Golan Heights, the weekend brought different feelings: concern over what the victory of Islamist militias might mean for their own safety, underpinned, inevitably, by dark memories of Hamas’s surprise and deadly incursion into Israel on 7 October 2023.

Israel captured the Golan Heights in 1967 and announced its unilateral annexation in 1981. Most countries do not recognise Israel’s sovereignty over the land, though the Trump administration recognised the annexation in 2019.

If there is a sense of heightened danger it is because the actions of the Israeli military have amplified the impression of instability brought about by the rebel takeover in Damascus.

Visiting a Golan hilltop on Sunday, before the start of his high-profile trial on corruption charges, Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said that because Syrian troops had abandoned their positions, Israel’s move into the buffer zone was necessary as a “temporary defensive position”.

The significance of the Golan and the buffer zone is its unique geographical position overlooking four countries: Syria, Israel, Lebanon and Jordan. Whether Israel’s stated concern over its security is justified, or serves a wider agenda, is another question.

“I think the main motivation is that they want make sure people up there don’t leave in the same way as other people in the north left because of the threat of Hezbollah from Lebanon,” said HA Hellyer, a Middle East expert at the Royal United Services Institute. “It is not the fear of rockets but incursions by armed groups.”

Sanam Vakil, director of the Middle East and north Africa programme at Chatham House, sees it as an opportunistic move of a part with Israel’s wider ambitions.

“Israel is taking advantage of the moment to protect it’s security interests and assert a broader objective of creating buffer zones across all of its borders,” Vakil said. “It is also doing the bidding of the international community amidst the uncertainty of the political process and outcomes in Syria by taking out the military capacity available to Syrian groups in case things go out of control.”

At an overlook near the Quneitra crossing, a group of soldiers was studying a map of the buffer zone beyond. “This area was historically quiet until the Arab spring in 2011,” one of the officers said. “Later we had rebel forces move in. The concern is to keep the area secure to prevent any danger on our border.

“But I think ultimately that may be possible with technology and drones and having fire control over the area, rather than boots on the ground.”

As he was speaking a middle-aged Israeli woman approached the group and asked if it was possible to go to Damascus.

“We were on holiday in the Golan,” said Yemima Asida, a member of the national religious community from central Israel, “and we heard on the news that Israeli tanks were near Damascus [a claim denied by the IDF]. We asked the soldiers at the gate in Majdal Shams if we could go and they said no.

“It’s exciting,” she said by way of an explanation. “We need to be in the buffer to keep our communities safe. “I think it could be a bargaining chip in the future.”

Then she considered the issue for a moment. “Or our presence here could be a reason to attack us.”