{"id":17581,"date":"2024-12-16T08:38:17","date_gmt":"2024-12-16T03:08:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=17581"},"modified":"2025-04-05T05:16:36","modified_gmt":"2025-04-04T23:46:36","slug":"golan-heights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/golan-heights\/","title":{"rendered":"Key Facts about Golan Heights"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><strong>About Golan Heights:<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>It is a <strong>hilly area overlooking<\/strong> the <strong>upper Jordan River<\/strong> valley on the west.<\/li>\n<li>It is a<strong>Syrian territory occupied by Israel<\/strong> since 1967.<\/li>\n<li>The area\u2019s name is from the biblical city of refuge Golan in Bashan.<\/li>\n<li>It is <strong>bounded by<\/strong> the <strong>Jordan River<\/strong> and the <strong>Sea of Galileeon the west<\/strong>, <strong>Mount Hermon<\/strong> on the north, the seasonal <strong>Wadi Al-Ruqq\u0101d River<\/strong> on the east, and the <strong>Yarm\u016bk River<\/strong> on the south.<\/li>\n<li>It extends about 71 km from north to south and about 43 km from east to west at its widest point.\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>It is <strong>roughly boat-shaped<\/strong> and has an area of 1,150 sq.km.\u00a0<\/li>\n<li><strong>History<\/strong>:\n<ul>\n<li>The area <strong>was part of<\/strong> extreme southwestern <strong>Syria until 1967,<\/strong> when it <strong>came under Israeli military occupation <\/strong>in the <strong>closing stages of the 1967 Six-Day War<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Most of the Syrian Arab inhabitants fled the area<\/strong> during the conflict.<\/li>\n<li>Syria tried to retake the Golan Heights during the 1973 Middle East war, but the attempt was thwarted.<\/li>\n<li>Both countries signed an armistice in 1974, and a UN observer force has been in place on the ceasefire line since 1974.<\/li>\n<li>In <strong>December 1981, Israel unilaterally annexed<\/strong> the part of the Golan it held.\u00a0<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>It&#8217;s <strong>considered occupied territory under international law a<\/strong>nd UN Security Council resolutions.<\/li>\n<li>There are more than <strong>30 Israeli settlements<\/strong> in the Golan Heights, which are home to an estimated <strong>20,000 people.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>They are <strong>considered illegal under international law<\/strong>, which Israel disputes.<\/li>\n<li>The <strong>settlers live alongside some 20,000 Syrians<\/strong>, <strong>most of them Druze Arabs<\/strong> who did not flee when the area came under Israeli control.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Strategic Importance:<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>The <strong>Syrian capital<\/strong>, <strong>Damascus<\/strong>, can be <strong>clearly seen from the top<\/strong> of the Golan Hills.<\/li>\n<li>It <strong>overlooks northern Israel\u2019s Galilee region<\/strong> and <strong>the Sea of Galilee<\/strong> and dominates the route to Damascus on the Syrian-controlled side.<\/li>\n<li>Importantly, the Golan Heights <strong>shares a border with Jordan and Lebanon.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>The area is also a <strong>key source of water<\/strong> for an arid region. Rainwater from the Golan&#8217;s catchment feeds into the Jordan River.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<h3>Q1: Where is the Sea of Galilee?<\/h3>\n<p>The Sea of Galilee is a large freshwater lake located in the Jordan Rift Valley between the Galilee region and Golan Heights in the northeastern part of Israel, close to its borders with Jordan and Syria.<\/p>\n<p><strong>News<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/timesofindia.indiatimes.com\/world\/middle-east\/israel-plans-to-double-popn-in-golan-cites-threats-from-syria\/articleshow\/116349392.cms\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><strong>Israel plans to double population in Golan, cites threats from Syria<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Golan Heights is a hilly area overlooking the upper Jordan River valley on the west.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":17582,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-17581","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","8":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17581","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17581"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17581\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17582"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17581"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17581"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17581"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}