Golan Druze Attack IDF Ambulances Carrying Syrian Soldiers

Twice today there were reports of attacks by Golan and Israeli Druze against Israel Defense Forces (IDF) carrying wounded from the Syrian civil war, The first attack occurred in the upper Galilee Druze town of Hurfeish, leaving one local Druze wounded. The second attack, near Majdal Shams in the Golan, reportedly involved a crowd of 150 and left one Syrian soldier dead and several wounded, including the Israeli driver and doctor.

The incidents come amid growing tensions among local Druze in the Galilee and Golan, concerned about attacks on their fellow Druze inside Syria by yhe jihadist Jabhat al-Nusra. Since the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) was forced to withdraw last fall from the buffer zone to the Israeli forward line of control, both the IDF and the UN peacekeepers are essentially on the front line of the Syrian civil was.

Reeent background pieces in The Washington Post and the Irish Times (many of the UN peacekeepers are Irish troops) have dealt with the growing tensions as the Golan Druze demand protection for their Syrian co-religionists, many of whom have family ties across the disengagement line. Apparently the attacks on the ambulances were insire by fear that the wounded Syrians were Jabhat al-Nusra, though the Israeli reports seem to imply they were regime soldiers. Isral has regularly been treating Syrians wounded in the civil war in field hospitals in the north.

The growing danger that the fighting in Syria could spill into the Golan (or into Jordan), makes the Golan front a dangerous one.

Hizbullah Raid on Israeli Column was a Response to Israel's Quneitra Raid

Today's clash between Hizbullah and Israeli troops in the disputed Sheba‘a Farms area where the Lebanese, Israeli, and Golan Heights borders meet, and which killed two Israeli soldiers and a Spanish UNIFIL peacekeeper, is being portrayed by Israel as a provocation, with retaliation promised. But Hizbullah statements make it clear that the raid is directly linked to last week's attack by Israel on a Hizbullah column in the Quneitra region of the Golan.

Most of the US newspaper accounts I've seen either fail to mention this linkage or bury it deep in the article.

Does UNDOF have a Future?

With the withdrawal of the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force from the Disengagement Zone and behind the Israeli line of control earlier this week, what happens next? For 40 years UNDOF watched over a quasi-border that was normally quiet, and provided a crossing point for Golan Druze to visit relatives on the Syrian side of the disengagement lines.

Current UNDOF Deployments (UN)

But now, the 1,250 peacekeepers are concentrated in Camp Ziouani just west of Line A, the forward line of Israeli control (see map at right). Prospects of restoring its peacekeeping mission seem dim so long as the Syrian civil war is raging just to the east, and Israelis are speculating that this could mark the end of UNDOF. (And they're noting the likelihood of an eventual Israeli withdrawal from Golan just became more remote.)

Though ISIS is getting all the attention, I think the end of a peacekeeping force in place since 1974 (if this is the end) is another ominous sign of the momentous changes the region is going through.

After 40 Years, UNDOF Withdraws Behind Line "A" in Golan: Nusra Now Occupies Disengagement Zone

Yesterday the United Nations announced:

The situation in UNDOF on the Syrian side and the area of separation has deteriorated severely over the last several days.

Armed groups have made advances in the area of UNDOF positions, posing a direct threat to the safety and security of the UN Peacekeepers along the “Bravo” line and in Camp Faouar.

All the UN personnel in these positions have thus been relocated to the “Alpha” side.

UNDOF continues to use all available assets to carry out its mandated tasks in this exceptionally challenging environment.

Deciphered from opaque UN-ese (which is probably why this has been little commented upon in the Western media), this means that UNDOF has completely withdrawn from the Golan disengagement force zone it has held since 1974 and into Israeli-controlled territory. There is nothing between the Israel Defense Forces and Jabhat al-Nusra, though UNDOF  says it will "carry out its mandated tasks."

Put that way, it sounds a bit more dangerous, doesn't it?  Line A is the line east of which Israeli forces are prohibited; line B the line west of which Syrian forces are (or were) prohibited; UNDOF controlled the territory between the two. Now, it appears Jabhat al-Nusra does.

And Syria's Ambassador to the UN Bashar Jaafari is claiming:

"The terrorists are now using United Nations cars, which hold the emblem of the United Nations forces in the Golan. They are using the uniform of the UNDOF, the weapons of UNDOF, the positions of UNDOF to shell on the Syrian army as well as on the civilians in villages," Jaafari told reporters.

Other reports seem to support this.

The Buffer is Gone

While the Israeli media has been on this for obvious reasons, I suspect that the UN statement about "Line Bravo" and "Line Alpha" meant little to most reporters. But a disengagement line created in 1974 (40 years ago) just effectively disappeared.

All this follows the recent release of the Fijian UNDOF peacekeepers captured by Nusra, and amid reports originating with Asharq al-Awsat quoting Syrian opposition sources as claiming Qatar paid a $20 million or more ransom to free the Fijians. (Given the current rivalries between Saudi Arabia and Qatar, Saudi claims about Qatar may include disinformation; Fiji says it knows nothing about any ransom.)

The withdrawal of UN peacekeepers from a longstanding disengagement zone after 40 years would normally be considered a major crisis (threat level: holy shit!), but with the front porch on fire and all eyes on ISIS, no one was watching the back.

Well, Israel is of course, but whether that's reassuring or part of the danger remains to be seen.

Nusra Frees Captured Fijian UNDOF Peacekepers

The United Nations has confirmed the release of 45 Fijian UNDOF peacekeepers captured in the Golan on August 28. (Earlier stories here and here.) They had been held by the Syrian rebel group Jabhat al-Nusra.

After Seizure of UNDOF Fijian Troops Yesterday, Now a Filipino Detachment is Surrounded by Nusra Fighters

UNDOF Disengagement Zone

UPDATE; Apparently the rebels are now claiming the peacekeepers were detained "for their own protection."

A day after capturing 43 United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) troops from Fiji, Syrian rebels now reportedly have surrounded another 81 Filipino UNDOF peacekeepers. Earlier, Syrian rebels, including Jabhat al-Nusra fighters, had occupied the Quneitra crossing near the town of Quneitra.

The 43 Fijian troops were in the vicinity of Quneitra crossing, the one authorized crossing point across the Golan disengagement zone. It is normally used to allow local Druze villagers to cross for family reasons and to export apples grown by Druze in the Israeli-occupied sector.

Current UNDOF Deployments (UN)

The Filipinos who are surrounded are deployed in the al-Ruwayhina and Burayqa areas. See the second map for current UNDOF deployments. They lie just to the south of Quneitra.

The 1,223 UNDOF peacekeepers are armed only with light weapons, which they are authorized to use in self defense, but only "in extreme circumstances."

The current UNDOF deployment includes detachments from Fiji, India, Ireland, Nepal, Netherlands, and the Philippines, though the last has announced its intention to withdraw its troops.  

Though the Fijian Army consists of only six infantry battalions, two are normally stationed abroad as peacekeepers; the first battalion is now with UNDOF, though it has served with UNIFIL in Lebanon as well, and the second battalion is with the Multinational Force and Observers in Sinai. 

I have two comments to make. First, it is a reminder that the Blue Helmets really do run risks, specially in situations like South Lebanon and now, the Golan. (Austria, Croatia, and Japan have pulled their troops out of UNDOF, and as mentioned, the Philippines is about to do the same.)

Second, I wonder: Jabhat al-Nusra does realize that UNDOF is the only thing standing between them and the Israeli Army, doesn't it? Of course this may be a deliberate attempt to provoke Israel and allow Nusra to claim that they, not the Asad regime, are fighting for the Golan. But that could prove to be risky business.

1973's Forgotten Golan Front: Hermonit and "The Valley of Tears," Part One

Syrian T-62 at the Crest of Hermonit; a steep slope is behind it

The 40th anniversary of the 1973 Arab-Israeli war suggests to me another issue: the often neglected Golan front. Let me note from the beginning that when I call (in the post title) the Golan Front in the 1973 war a "forgotten" front I refer to how the war is remembered in much of the outside world, including Egypt (where the war is wholly identified with the "crossing" of the Suez Canal), and in many of the minds and memoirs of the outside world. In Israel and Syria, the Golan Front is not forgotten. The Golan Heights contain a string of Israeli war memorials, a few to 1967 but others to 1973, including the memorial shown above, containing a destroyed Syrian T-62 tank on the mountain ridge known as Hermonit (Little Hermon).

Few war memorials I have visited do as well (though perhaps unintentionally) to remember the heroism of both sides. What is not clear from the photo here but is immediately obvious when one visits the site is that the ground falls off steeply a short distance behind the tank, and that the tank had managed to advance up a very steep ridge against tank and artillery resistance on the high ground, and had arrived at the crest before it was stopped. While the memorial commemorates the outnumbered Israeli defenders on the ridge, the fact that that Syrian tank crew (presumably soon deceased) reached the ridgeline strikes me as a suitable memorial to their heroism as well. When you stand there, wherever your political sympathies may lie, you can't help but feel the sacrifice on both sides. I get a similar feeling from the Clump of Trees at Gettysburg, but the high ground here is much steeper. It was a high water mark in much the same way.

This video gives a better sense of my point and a sense of the position, though from an Israeli perspective only:

The Middle East is largely good country for tanks. And many of the great tank battles of history have been fought there: El Alamein, Kasserine Pass, Sinai 1956, 1967, and 1973. Sinai and the Western Desert are fine tank country; the Golan Heights is anything but. High, broken ground with steep ridges and gorges and the cones of extinct volcanoes, it's hell for tankers. Yet in October 1973 a ferocious tank battle was fought there, leaving the ground riddled with hundreds of Syrian and Israeli burned-out tanks and APCs, many of which, like the one above, have been left as reminders and memorials.

Also, in conjunction with yesterday's post about Moshe Dayan's request to use nuclear weapons if needed on October 7, it is worth emphasizing that the context of that plea was not the crossing of the Golan, but the breakthrough in the Golan. The crossing of the Canal left Israel with a couple of fallback defense lines, first at the mountain passes (Mitla and Giddi) in mid-Sinai, and secondly in the open desert of eastern Sinai and the Negev, before Israel proper would be in danger. There were no such strategic buffers in Golan: if Egypt had reached its initial military objective of the passes, it would still have been hundreds of miles from Israeli population centers; if Syria had broke through in Golan, it would have been in the Hula Valley and threatening Qiryat Shemona. The nuclear option was first invoked there, where the threat seemed truly imminent.

The above is a wider angle scene of the Hermonit war memorial, with the tank previously shown on the left of the memorial. One can get a somewhat better sense of how the land falls off here.

As the battle went on for several days this will occupy several posts. Next: the ground, the antagonists, and the units involved.

Have Two Syrian Divisions along the Golan Ceasefire Line "Almost Entirely Disintegrated"?

I'm certainly not endorsing this vaguely-sourced report from Israel haYom, but it might explain recent exchanges of fire along the Disengagement Line in the Golan:

Two divisions of the Syrian army, comprising tens of thousands of soldiers, which had been posted permanently along the Golan cease-fire line, have now almost entirely disintegrated, a Jordanian official has told Israel Hayom.  

A senior defense official in Jordan confirmed to Israel Hayom on Sunday that two divisions of the Syrian army, comprising tens of thousands of soldiers, which had been posted permanently along the Golan cease-fire line, have now almost entirely disintegrated. The breakdown of the Syrian army in that region means that the country's opposition has now completely overrun the Israeli-Syrian border area.

According to the defense official, the regime in Damascus no longer has any control over the Syrian side of the Golan Heights.

"The regime no longer controls south-east Syria, and most of the periphery has been overrun by rebels and their supporters," the official said. "The Syrian Golan has turned into a no-man's land, ruled by armed opposition militias and extremist terrorists that have infiltrated the country."

The official added that "Iranian Revolutionary Guards and armed Hezbollah fighters who were helping the Syrian soldiers in the Golan area have also disappeared in recent days, abandoning positions and posts full of supplies and ammunition."

I'm no fan of the Syrian regime, but this could be a tinderbox if true.

Talk About Fusion Music: The "Jamaican/Algerian" Reggae/Raï Israeli Arab (Druze) Band from the Golan Heights

Now for you young'uns out there, I have to emphasize that I'm still getting over Elvis' death back in
'77, and while I did play the Beatles' "When I'm 64" a  lot a week ago when I turned a certain age, I'm hardly a pop music critic for the present millennium.

To me music ranges from early rock through classic country, jazz, Delta blues and R&B, with a bit of pop in there too. So I'm not exactly up to speed on  current trends in Rap, Hip Hop, or Go-Go, though I'm not humming "When You and I Were Young, Maggie," or "A Bicycle Built for Two," either.

Today being Rosh Hashona and these being the High Holy Days and all, along with the Palestinian UN application,  I'm reading the Israeli press more than in some periods. In the process I ran across this.

A blend of Jamaican reggae and Algerian Raï? Okay. Israeli Arabs? Okay. Well, Druze actually. From Majeal Shams in the Golan Heights. Facebook Page here.


And samples from YouTube:

Rare Troubles Among Golan Druze

Trouble between the Druze population of the occupied Golan Heights has been reported in the Druze town of Majdal Shams in the northern Golan. This is rather unusual. Israeli version here: violence broke out as police raided a restaurant in the town to carry out a search. Some police officers were cut off inside the restaurant for some time but were later rescued. Also see the Jerusalem Post here, which speaks of 1000 demonstrators surrounding the police until Druze elders and police negotiated a release. Arab vcrsion here (in Arabic, but even if you don't read the language click through as there's a clear photo of an overturned Israeli police vehicle): trouble also involved the home of a man arrested at Ben Gurion airport; police were held hostage for awhile, etc.

The point here is that the Golan Druze have been among the more docile subjects of occupation; they are virtually the only Syrian citizens who remained in Golan after 1967. Lately there've been reports of possible Israeli settlement activity around a Druze holy site (Arabic), and there have been other tensions as well.

Hat tip here to Zeinobia, for pointing me to these stories.