golan heights Facts

The territorial dispute between Israel and Syria centers on the Golan Heights. Here are facts about the territory:

Location: Plateau on the southwestern corner of Syria overlooking Sea of Galilee and northern Israel.

Size: At 485 square miles, the Golan Heights is roughly one-third the size of Rhode Island.

History: Syrian soldiers shelled northern Israel from the Golan Heights between 1948 and 1967. Israel captured the territory in the 1967 Mideast war. Israel annexed it in 1981, but no country recognized that.

Population: Most of the 100,000 Syrian residents of the Golan Heights fled during the 1967 war and were not allowed to return. About 17,000 remain, most of them members of the Druse sect, an offshoot of Islam. A few have accepted Israeli citizenship, but most retain Syrian nationality. About 18,000 Israelis live in 32 settlements built since 1967.

Dispute: In 2000, Israel-Syria peace talks broke down. Israel offered to withdraw from all the Golan Heights down to the international border in exchange for full peace. Syria insisted on recovering land across the border that it captured in 1948, including the eastern shore of the Sea of Galilee. Israel demanded full control of the Sea of Galilee, a main source of fresh water, and was not satisfied with Syria’s peace proposals.

Wars: Syria fought in three wars against Israel in 1948, 1967 and 1973. Syrian forces battled Israel when it invaded Lebanon in 1982. Damascus backs the Lebanese militia Hezbollah that fought a monthlong war with Israel in 2006. Syria is a close ally of Iran, a bitter enemy of Israel that has threatened to wipe it off the map. Israeli warplanes carried out an attack on Syria last September, targeting an installation the U.S. has said was an unfinished nuclear reactor built by North Korea.

Militants: Syria provides a safe haven for various militant groups fighting Israel, including Hamas and Islamic Jihad, which have their headquarters in the capital, Damascus. In February 2007, a top Hezbollah commander was assassinated in the Syrian capital in an attack widely assumed to have been engineered by Israel.