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Since the fall of the Assad dictatorship in Syria, Israel's military has taken up new post inside an internationally patrolled buffer zone between the two countries. Israel says its presence in the Golan Heights border highlands is vital for national security. Syrian villagers there say the soldiers have forced them from their homes. NPR's Hadeel Al-Shalchi took a rare visit there.
HADEEL AL-SHALCHI, BYLINE: The Golan Heights is a rocky terrain dotted with olive trees and grazing cows. It's enclosed by snow-capped mountains. Israel seized it from Syria during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war and has since established dozens of settlements considered illegal under international law. To keep the peace between this annexed region and Syria, the two countries agreed to allow U.N. forces to monitor a long, narrow buffer zone.
KHALED RAMADAN: (Speaking Arabic).
AL-SHALCHI: Khaled Ramadan has long lived a peaceful life in the small village of Al-Rawadi inside the buffer zone.
RAMADAN: (Speaking Arabic).
AL-SHALCHI: Ramadan points into the distance. "See that water tower tank?" he says. "That's where my village is." The 50-year-old farmer can see his home, but he can't go back. Ramadan says just hours after Syrian rebels swept Damascus and overthrew Bashar al-Assad, Israeli troops swept into his village and forced him out.
RAMADAN: (Speaking Arabic).
AL-SHALCHI: "The Israeli tanks and bulldozers rolled in, and there was gunfire," Ramadan says. His village is now in ruins. Ramadan, his wife and two kids ran with nothing but the clothes on their backs. Israel's military did not respond to NPR's request for comment about the village's takeover. Critics say Israel is taking advantage of Syria's fledging government to make a land grab, and many villagers are worried they'll be displaced next.
MOHAMED EMREIWET: (Speaking Arabic).
AL-SHALCHI: In the small village of Jubata al-Khashab, Mayor Mohamed Emreiwet meets us in his large living room. The floor is covered with oriental carpets. A wood-burning stove keeps the room warm. The walls are lined with aged photos of men with impressive mustaches.
AL-SHALCHI: (Speaking Arabic).
I ask Emreiwet who they are.
EMREIWET: (Speaking Arabic).
AL-SHALCHI: His grandfather, his uncles, an ancestor who fought French colonialists in Syria back in the 1920s. Emreiwet says he's been thinking about them a lot lately.
EMREIWET: (Speaking Arabic).
AL-SHALCHI: He says Israeli troops rolled into his village the day after the fall of Bashar al-Assad, and the troops told him to meet them.
EMREIWET: (Speaking Arabic).
AL-SHALCHI: He did, on a dirt road in the nearby forest.
EMREIWET: (Speaking Arabic).
AL-SHALCHI: "They told me we don't trust anyone after the October 7 Hamas-led attacks on Israel. We're here to protect our own safety."
EMREIWET: (Speaking Arabic).
AL-SHALCHI: "They demanded we surrender any weapons we had, or they would go into our homes and search them." To protect his villagers, Emreiwet rounded up the weapons and handed them over to the Israelis. Emreiwet says he told the interim Syrian government what happened.
EMREIWET: (Speaking Arabic).
AL-SHALCHI: He was told negotiations with Israel were underway to leave the buffer zone soon. NPR asked both Syria's interim government and the Israeli foreign ministry for an update. Neither responded.
EMREIWET: (Speaking Arabic).
AL-SHALCHI: "Israeli troops entering our village means displacement," Emreiwet says, "and no one here is prepared to do that." The United Nations has called on Israel to withdraw. Israel says it's not leaving any time soon.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PRIME MINISTER BENJAMIN NETANYAHU: (Speaking Arabic).
AL-SHALCHI: Last month, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stood on Mount Hermon in the Syrian side of the Golan Heights. He said the Israeli Army was there to secure Israel's safety, that it's temporary, but wouldn't give a timeline to leave. Villagers say they are worried the move won't be temporary, and some are protesting, like 17-year-old Abdulrahman Aqqad. He's sitting in a lawn chair wrapped in blankets in the sun outside his home in the village of Sweesa.
ABDULRAHMAN AQQAD: (Speaking Arabic).
AL-SHALCHI: Aqqad said during a recent protest, residents were chanting, Syria is free. Israel, get out. He says that's when soldiers shot him in the legs. When asked about the shooting, the Israeli military told NPR, soldiers, quote, "solely fired warning shots in the air after a crowd they had told to retreat kept approaching them." Israel's increased presence is disrupting too many lives, says 32-year-old Mohamed Faroukh.
MOHAMED FAROUKH: (Speaking Arabic).
AL-SHALCHI: He has a wife and a daughter he worries about. There's a new Israeli checkpoint just 300 yards from his house in the village of Al-Baath. A sand-colored tank is parked at the intersection down the road. White tank tracks mark his street.
FAROUKH: (Speaking Arabic).
AL-SHALCHI: "Every day, the tank runs down our road and turns around," Faroukh says.
FAROUKH: (Speaking Arabic).
AL-SHALCHI: "There's no way I'd live under Israeli occupation," he says.
(Speaking Arabic).
I ask Faroukh what he would do otherwise.
FAROUKH: (Speaking Arabic).
AL-SHALCHI: "I'll pack myself up and go," he says.
Hadeel Al-Shalchi, NPR News, in the Golan Heights. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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