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Derechos | Equipo Nizkor
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| Information | | |
Derechos | Equipo Nizkor
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21Mar13
Syria rebels take towns near ceasefire line with Israel
Syrian rebels have overrun several towns near the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights in the past 24 hours, rebels and a monitoring group said on Thursday, fuelling tensions in the sensitive military zone.
"We have been attacking government positions as the army has been shelling civilians, and plan to take more towns," said Abu Essam Taseel, from the media office of the "Martyrs of Yarmouk", a rebel brigade operating in the area.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based group monitoring the conflict in Syria, said rebels had taken several towns near the Golan plateau, which Israel captured from Syria in the 1967 Middle East war and later annexed.
Witnesses said at least 150 Syrians had fled the fighting and crossed the border into Lebanon's Shebaa region, just north of the Golan. Many of them crossed on foot or by donkey through rugged snow-capped terrain around Mount Hermon.
The Observatory said that on Wednesday night rebels had captured Khan Arnabeh, which sits on the Israeli-Syrian disengagement line and straddles a main road leading into Israeli-held territory.
Rebels also took Mashati al-Khadar and Seritan Lahawan, two villages near the ceasefire line, it said.
U.N. peacekeepers monitoring the line halted patrols this month after rebels held 21 Filipino observers for three days.
The armed struggle between rebels and forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has posed increasing difficulties for the 1,000-strong U.N. Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF).
There is growing concern in Israel that Islamist rebels may be emboldened to end the quiet maintained by Assad and his father before him on the Golan front since 1974.
Rebel sources say the Syrian army intensified shelling of villages in the area of Saham al-Golan at dawn on Thursday.
They said rebels in the Quneitra region, next to the Golan, were stepping up attacks on roadblocks to gain more territory but added that the strategic town of Quneitra - which was largely destroyed and abandoned during Israeli-Syrian clashes in 1974 - was still in Syrian government hands.
[Source: Reuters, Beirut, 21Mar13]
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