The United Nations has accused Israel of \u201csevere violations\u201d of a 50-year-old agreement with Syria, saying it has engaged in \u201cengineering groundwork activities\u201d that encroach on a key buffer zone in the Golan Heights. <\/p>\n
\u201cViolations of the 1974 Disengagement Agreement have occurred where engineering works have encroached into the AoS (the area of separation),\u201d the UN Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF), which has maintained the ceasefire between Israel and Syria since 1974, said in a statement Tuesday. <\/p>\n
Satellite imagery from Planet Labs and the European Space Agency shows that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has been conducting excavation activity near Jubata Al Khashab, Syria since mid-August. A large earthen berm, roughly 40 feet (12 meters) wide, is being dug. <\/p>\n
The trench now stretches almost five miles (eight kilometers). <\/p>\n
Work on extending the trench even further is continuing, according to recent satellite imagery. In a Planet Labs image taken on November 5, an excavator and other vehicles can be seen working. <\/p>\n
The \u201cextensive engineering groundwork activities\u201d run along the so-called Alpha Line that separates Syria and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, UNDOF said, adding that the construction began in July and includes the use of \u201cexcavators and other earth-moving equipment with protection from armored vehicles and soldiers.\u201d Main battle tanks of the IDF were also occasionally present in the demilitarized zone, violating the 1974 agreement. <\/p>\n
The UN peacekeeping mission said it has \u201crepeatedly engaged with the IDF to protest the construction\u201d work, which has worried Syrian authorities, who have also \u201cstrongly protested.\u201d <\/p>\n
UNDOF warned on Tuesday that Israel\u2019s \u201csevere violations\u201d at the buffer zone \u201chave the potential to increase tensions in the area.\u201d <\/p>\n
The peacekeeping force and its mandate were born out of a US-brokered ceasefire between Israel and Syria in May 1974, following months of fighting in a war launched by Egyptian and Syrian forces against Israel in October 1973. <\/p>\n
The agreement created a buffer zone, as well as two equal zones of limited forces and armaments on both sides of the area. While Israel and Syria remain formally at war, this agreement has largely maintained peace with the help of the UN peacekeeping mission in the Golan. <\/p>\n
For Israel, the Golan Heights is a strategic plateau seized from Syria during the Six-Day War in 1967, and formally annexed in 1981. The hilly landscape, which spans some 500 square miles, is home to some 20,000 Arab Druze and about 25,000 Jewish Israelis spread across more than 30 settlements. <\/p>\n
It also shares a border with Jordan and Lebanon, where Israel has been waging a war against the Iran-backed Hezbollah group. <\/p>\n
Israel sees the Golan Heights as key to its national security interests and says it needs to control the region to fend off threats from Syria and Iranian proxy groups there. <\/p>\n
On Tuesday, UNDOF said that upon engaging Israel about the violations, the Israeli side said the construction is \u201cbeing carried out for defensive purpose to prevent unauthorized crossing and violations by civilians\u201d along the Alpha Line on the Israeli side. <\/p>\n
Navvar Saban, a researcher at the Harmoon Center for Contemporary Studies who specializes in Iranian influence in Syria and Iraq, said Israeli activities in the Golan are likely for defensive purposes, as the IDF seeks to enhance its existing structures. <\/p>\n
Israel has for months been conducting strikes inside Syria, saying it is targeting Iranian or Hezbollah interests. In April, following an Israeli strike on what Tehran said was a diplomatic building in Damascus, Iran responded by launching a barrage of missiles and drones directly at Israel. <\/p>\n
In July, tensions between Israel and Hezbollah spiked after a deadly rocket attack hit a soccer field in the Arab town of Majdal Shams in the Golan, killing at least 12 children. Israel blamed Hezbollah for the attack, which the Lebanese group denied. <\/p>\n
Saban said that Hezbollah is unlikely to try and trigger an Israeli military offensive from the Golan, however. <\/p>\n
Israel has in recent months accused Syria of violating the 1974 agreement. In July, the IDF said it struck Syrian military infrastructure in retaliation for alleged breaches. \u201cThe IDF holds the Syrian military responsible for all activities occurring within its territory and will not allow any attempts to violate Israeli sovereignty,\u201d the Israeli military said. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
The United Nations has accused Israel of \u201csevere violations\u201d of a 50-year-old agreement with Syria, saying it has engaged in \u201cengineering groundwork activities\u201d that encroach on a key buffer zone in the Golan Heights. \u201cViolations of the 1974 Disengagement Agreement have occurred where engineering works have encroached into the AoS (the area of separation),\u201d the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":4930,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4929","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/investingsstrategist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4929","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/investingsstrategist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/investingsstrategist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/investingsstrategist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4929"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/investingsstrategist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4929\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/investingsstrategist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4930"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/investingsstrategist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4929"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/investingsstrategist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4929"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/investingsstrategist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4929"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}