ISRAEL CLOSES GOLAN ZONE ADJACENT TO SYRIA

Al Quds, 13 Rajab 1435/12 May 2014 9MINA)  — Israel’s army on Sunday declared part of the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights a closed military zone, fearing battles on the Syrian side would spill over the ceasefire line.

An army spokeswoman told the area around the Quneitra crossing was closed “for security reasons.” Maan quoted by Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA) as reporting.

Security sources said they feared fighting between rebels and Syrian army forces would affect the area.

Opposition in southern Syria set up earlier this year the so-called Southern Front, including some 30,000 fighters from more than 55 mainstream rebel groups, and have claimed successes, notably in Quneitra.

Israel, which is technically at war with Syria, seized 1,200 square kilometers (460 square miles) of the Golan Heights plateau during the 1967 Six-Day War and later annexed it in a move never recognized by the international community.

In March, Israeli aircraft struck inside Syria in the wake of a bomb attack on the Golan which wounded four soldiers.

Since the Syrian conflict erupted in 2011, the plateau has been tense, with a growing number of stray projectiles hitting the Israeli-occupied side, prompting an occasional armed response.

The Syrian Golan is a region in southwest Syria which was occupied on June 5, 1967 by Israeli forces. The Golan’s overall land mass is 1,860 square kilometers, which is approximately 1 percent of Syria’s total area, about 1,500 square kilometers remains under Israeli occupation. Before this Israeli occupation, the Golan was home to over 140,000 Syrians, most of whom were driven out of their homeland and into Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) status.

In October 1973 during the October War, Syria attempted to liberate its Golan from Israeli occupation. Syria succeeded after the disengagement agreements to regain a strip of territory that included the main city and capital of the Golan, Quneitra. When Quneitraian citizens returned to their liberated homes, they were traumatized and stunned to find that every home, building, Mosque and Church in the city had been deliberately demolished by Israeli bulldozers and dynamite.

Even the city’s graves had been dug and robbed by the Israelis, all just days before the Israeli withdrawal, as documented by the BBC and others. The city remains destroyed as living proof of Israeli aggression towards civilians. On December 14, 1981, Israel annexed, the Occupied Syrian Golan; the international community responded with Security Council Resolution 497 (1981), which unanimously called this move, “null and void” and not one country has legitimized it. Since then, every year the U.N. passes General Assembly resolution titled “The Occupied Syrian Golan” which reaffirms the illegality of the Israeli occupation and annexation.

In 1991, peace talks between Syria and Israel started at the Madrid Conference in which the return of the Syrian Golan was a central topic. However, negotiations came to a dead-end due to Israel ‘s refusal to withdraw completely from the Syrian Golan. To this day, Israel refuses to implement U.N. Security Council Resolutions 242 (1967) and 338 (1973); which call for the complete withdrawal from all the Arab territories occupied in 1967, including the Occupied Syrian Golan; as well as Security Council Resolution 479 (1981), which confirms the illegality of Israel ‘s annexation of the Golan. (T/P04/P03)

Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA)