On the high rocky plateau, the fall of Bashar al-Assad has sown complicated and contradictory emotions
Residents watch as Israeli tanks cross the fence from the Israeli occupied Golan Heights into the buffer zone with Syria, in the Druze village of Majdal Shams. Photograph: Oren Ziv/The Guardian
On the rocky hillside a kilometre away, next to a house in a grove of trees, Israeli flags could be seen flying as nearby a woman – the only civilian in view – collected wood. Further away still, high on the ridge, there were tanks and a road crew busy widening a dirt track and hardening its surface.Israel has faced international uproar over its incursion, which it has justified on the grounds that a 1974 disengagement agreement with Syria had “collapsed” with the fall of the Assad regime.
Even as some Druze took to the streets of villages such as Majdal Shams with Syrian flags to celebrate the fall of Assad over the weekend, community security squads who had been released from call-up only days before were quickly reactivated.
Nasrallah explained the complexities of how Druze felt about Assad. “Every family here has relatives,” he said. “People here were afraid for their relatives in Syria if they stood publicly against Assad.” Visiting a Golan hilltop on Sunday, before the start of his high-profile trial on corruption charges, Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said that because Syrian troops had abandoned their positions, Israel’s move into the buffer zone was necessary as a “temporary defensive position”.
“But I think ultimately that may be possible with technology and drones and having fire control over the area, rather than boots on the ground.”As he was speaking a middle-aged Israeli woman approached the group and asked if it was possible to go to Damascus.
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