Israeli Military Organises Tourist Tours of Newly Occupied Syrian Territory

Israel’s military is organising hiking tours for civilians in newly occupied Syrian territory during the Passover holiday, local media has reported.

The twice-daily tours in the contested Golan Heights will run for a week beginning this Sunday. Tickets sold out almost immediately.

Under a military escort in bulletproof buses, small groups will travel up to 2.5km into Syrian territory that was off limits until the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) seized the Golan buffer zone after the fall of the Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad in December. Israel has occupied the Golan Heights since 1967 and now controls hundreds more square kilometres of Syrian land.

The itinerary includes the Syrian side of Mount Hermon, which overlooks Damascus, and Lebanon’s Shebaa Farms at the foot of the mountain. The Israeli-occupied strip of Lebanese land, reputedly the site of God’s covenant with Abraham, has been a flashpoint for violence between Israel and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah for decades.

Visitors will also be able to hike and swim in the Ruqqad river valley which flows into the Yarmouk on the border with Jordan, and see parts of the abandoned Ottoman Hejaz railway, which used to connect the empire’s capital in Istanbul to Haifa, Nablus and holy sites in present day Saudi Arabia.

The trips have been organised by the IDF’s 210th Division, the Golan regional council, the Keshet Yehonatan religious education centre, the environmentalist Golan Field School and the Israel nature and parks authority, the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper reported.

The tours are part of a wider initiative, “Returning to a Safer North”, after the end of last year’s Israel-Hezbollah war, which was part of the regional fallout ignited by Hamas’s October 2023 attack on Israel and the ensuing war in the Gaza Strip.

The Israeli military said: “It’s important for us to restore heritage and tourism to the region and to tell the story of the battles fought during the war.”

Tourists sign up at their own risk and the trips may be cancelled at short notice if there are security issues. In response to questions from Israeli newspaper Haaretz, the IDF said that the tour was “inside Israel”, rather than Syria, although the visits take place in the Golan Heights demilitarised buffer zone, internationally recognised as Syrian territory.

The IDF began a heavy bombing campaign across Syria targeting the regime’s weapons stockpiles shortly after Assad fled the country, while ground troops advanced in violation of a 1974 agreement.

Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, has demanded that forces belonging to Syria’s new Islamist-led transitional government stay away from the border area and that the IDF remain until an alternative arrangement can be found.

Given demand, organisers have said that they hope the security situation will permit additional tours to Syria after Passover.

Source: The Guardian