JUNE 6, 2011
Violence Flares Up at Israeli Border
By JOSHUA MITNICK
TEL AVIV--Violence along the border between Syria and the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights escalated, claiming casualties on Sunday, as Israeli soldiers opened fire on demonstrators in two locations who sought to march across the frontier on the anniversary of the outbreak of the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.
Syria's state news agency said 23 people were killed and more than 350 were injured.
Israeli officials accused Syria of backing the protests to distract attention from its repression of weekslong antiregime protests, and said Lebanese authorities avoided a flare-up by declaring the border a closed military zone.
It was the worst day of fighting along the border since Israel and Syria fought a major war for control of the strategic Golan Plateau in 1973. Israel had reinforced the border with trenches, barbed wire and snipers amid reports of planned border protests. Israeli officials said they wanted to prevent a repeat of demonstrations two weeks ago, when hundreds of Palestinian demonstrators surprised and overwhelmed soldiers on the border and crossed into the Golan Heights.
On Sunday, the demonstrators--including some children-- halted amid gunfire and hunkered down in a daylong standoff about a football field away from the Israeli line near the northern Golan village of Majdal Shams. Further south, near the Syrian town of Quneitra, the Israeli army fired on demonstrators who advanced on a border crossing, and four land mines exploded.
It was the second flare-up in three weeks on a frontier that had remained relatively quiet for more than three decades, despite the cold war between the countries. Inspired by popular domestic demonstrations around the Arab world, pro-Palestinian protesters in Syria and Lebanon are seeking to challenge Israeli forces along the sensitive border region.
Israel--which says Syria and Iran are fomenting the flare-ups--sees the border demonstrations as a tactic to whip up regional and international pressure on the Jewish state as expectations rise for a United Nations resolution on Palestinian statehood in September.
An Israeli government spokesman expressed regret for the deaths, but accused Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime of ignoring Israeli warnings and putting protesters at risk to distract attention from domestic unrest. "Bashar Assad is sacrificing his people in order further his own agenda, which is to divert attention from what is happening for Syria," said Dan Gillerman, a spokesman for the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. "I think [the protests] were planned and executed by the government. It was very well-orchestrated," Mr. Gillerman said.
According to the Israeli army and witnesses, protesters gathered Sunday morning at a hilltop on the Syrian side of the border within walking distance of Majdal Shams, the Golan Heights village. When the demonstrators began to march toward the border, soldiers tried to ward them off with verbal warnings piped over loudspeakers, by firing into the air, and by firing tear gas, an Israeli army spokeswoman said.
Ignoring the warnings, dozens of demonstrators crossed into the United Nations-monitored demilitarized zone, reaching an Israeli military trench. When the demonstrators tried to penetrate a barbed-wire barrier about 100 yards from the Israeli line, snipers opened fire at their lower bodies, said an Israeli army spokeswoman. "IDF forces were left with no choice," she said.
A witness from Majdal Shams said the demonstrators carried Syrian and Palestinian flags and chanted, "We will defend Palestine and the Golan."
There were fewer demonstrators compared with three weeks ago, said Salman Fakhir Adeen, who runs a human-rights group based in the village that advocates for the rights of the Syrian residents in the Golan under Israeli rule. By nightfall, he said, the demonstrators withdrew to the Syrian side of the border.
"This is the influence of the uprising in the Arab countries," Mr. Adeen said. Syria "has the might but they don't have the will'' to control the protests, he added.
On May 15, hundreds of Syrian marchers crossed into the Golan and reached the central square in Majdal Shams, in an embarrassment to Israel's defense establishment. Most returned after several hours, though Israeli police arrested a handful who remained behind.
In Sunday's incident near Quneitra, Syria, the Israeli army said the protesters threw Molotov cocktails, setting off a brushfire in the border region; the brushfire triggered land mines in Syrian territory.
Sunday's demonstrations were inspired by the anniversary of the Six-Day War in 1967, when Israeli forces opened a pre-emptive assault on Egypt, Jordan and Syria, capturing the Golan Heights, the Sinai Peninsula and the West Bank. The fast and overwhelming defeats are known in Arabic as the "naksa," or "setback."
Three weeks ago, demonstrators in Syria, Lebanon, the West Bank and Gaza marched on the border to mark the anniversary of the creation of the state of Israel, referred to in Arabic as "the catastrophe." Some 13 demonstrators were killed.
In the West Bank on Sunday, hundreds of demonstrators threw rocks at the Israeli checkpoint at Qalandiya, between Ramallah and Jerusalem. Israeli forces responded with stun grenades and tear gas. In Gaza, Hamas forces turned back several dozen protesters who marched toward the border, Israel radio reported. In Majdal Shams, local residents threw rocks at Israeli police in protest against the Israeli response to the demonstrations.
Pro-Palestinian demonstrations were also planned at the Lebanese border Sunday, but organizers decided to postpone them after the Lebanese army declared the border a closed military zone. The Israeli army noted that Beirut "succeeded in blocking and restraining the demonstrations." Most of the fatalities three weeks ago occurred in Lebanon. Lebanon appeared to have planned to avoid any flare-ups. "The anniversary of the Arab defeat at the hands of Israel in 1967 passed off relatively smoothly," a statement on the state-run news agency said late Sunday.
Lebanon's state news agency said about 40 Palestinians from various refugee camps had gathered in the southern town of Oudyssa, and that a Lebanese army unit immediately cordoned off the area "and requested the men leave and keep away from the barbed wire for their own safety."
--Nour Malas in Dubai contributed to this article.
