Golan Heights, Whose Do They Belong? The Chronology of the Possible New War Territory –

Tensions between Israel and Lebanon have skyrocketed after a rocket killed 12 children on a soccer field in the town of Majdal Shams. France and the United States have intervened to ask the parties to contain their reactions following what immediately appeared to be an anomalous attack compared to what has been happening since October 7. The missile hit a territory formally belonging to Syria, that of the Golan Heights, but under Israeli occupation, and a population, the Druze, whose representatives have often refused Israeli citizenship, but who also feel culturally part of a separate community compared to Lebanon and Syria. Now the entire area risks becoming a new, additional, front in this war, after years of latent and never-ending tensions and uncertainty due to the intransigence of the Jewish state with respect to the claims of Syria and Hezbollah, a long-time ally of Damascus.

The Golan Heights is a strategically important plateau that Israel wrested from Syria during the Six-Day War in 1967 and then annexed to its territory in 1981. In addition to its size, 840 square kilometers, the Golan Heights are important because they border Lebanon and Jordan and because of their proximity to the Syrian capital Damascus, which is visible from the hills in the area.

Tensions have been extremely high for decades, to the point that the area under Israeli occupation is separated from Syria by a buffer zone managed by the United Nations. International law considers the Golan Heights to be an illegally occupied territory and this status is confirmed by several resolutions of the United Nations Security Council, which has pushed Syria to repeatedly ask for its sovereignty over the area to be restored. On the contrary, Israel has not taken any steps back. For the Jewish state, the Golan is a key point for its national interest and its security. The strategic position of the area allows the forces of the Jewish state to monitor and counter the movements of Hezbollah and other pro-Iranian militias that threaten their territory from Lebanon and Syria. Before these days, tensions had been skyrocketed in 2019 by the then American president, now candidate, Donald Trump, who announced that the United States would recognize Israeli sovereignty over the area, ruining any attempt at dialogue to resolve a decades-old issue, the solution of which today appears more difficult than ever to unravel. Starting in 2027, Israel aims to double the number of its settlements and citizens in the area, about 25,000 people divided into 30 colonies, despite the negative opinion of the United Nations. The risk is that the Golan Heights will once again end up at the center of the conflict between Hezbollah and Israel, dragging Lebanon into the conflict. A scenario of total war.