While some Golan Heights residers dream of seeing their cousins in Syria again, others express ‘ complicated’ feelings, redefining their identity and where they belong The Syrian event seems like a lucky auspice lower than five months after a ruinous Hezbollah attack on July 27, which killed 12 children and teenagers on a soccer field in the center of the city. It was the single deadliest Hezbollah attack since the terror group began striking northern Israel on October 8, 2023, one day after Hamas- led terrorists launched the surprise attack in southern Israel, massacring some 1,200 people in southern Israel and kidnapping 251 hostages.

Throughout the war with Hezbollah which was halted on November 27 with a 60- day ceasefire — Majdal Shams residers were living in a war zone.

“ Until this moment, we did n’t have peace, ” Nabih said.

When asked about her political ties and commitment, still, Nabih told a journalist for The Times of Israel that she did n't want to talk about whether the Golan Heights “ is Syrian or Israeli. ”

She lives on the Golan Heights, she said and feels an ancestral, spiritual attachment to the land. She made it a point to emphasize her ties to the land she lives on – not inescapably to the leaders who govern it.

“ We noway left our homes when the area went from Syria to Israel, ” she said. “ We're then. ”

Nabih also expressed her stopgap that the new government “ will hear to the requirements of the people. ”

Abu Mohammed al- Golani, leader of Hayat Tahrir al- Sham( HTS), launched a lightning descent with other recusant groups, seizing government- held home and landing Damascus on Sunday. Al- Golani, who now uses his real name, Ahmed al- Sharaa, has tried to assure nonages that he'll not intrude with them. In Aleppo, which the revolutionists captured a week ago, there have been no reports of damages.

Yet numerous Syrians remain fearful that the HTS group will put draconian Islamist rule because of its former ties with al Qaeda.

The Druze, a Jeremiah side that broke down from Shiite Islam in the 11th century, are considered iconoclastic to Sunni Islam and have been targeted by radical Islamic groups. Some residers expressed concern that al- Golani might turn into an adversary of the Druze.

Mountain vill with a smart accentuation

The main road of Majdal Shams, on a rugged edge of Mt. Hermon — known in Arabic as Jabal al- Sheik or mountain of the sheikh — has the sense of a mountain vill, but with a smart accentuation. There are upmarket coffee houses, as well as apparel and ornamental shops, along with the scent of wood- burning ranges. rather of the black flags of mourning that were displayed after Hezbollah’s attack, moment there's a large flag of the Syrian opposition hanging in the city’s main forecourt.

Syria’s new period has given Druze residers a sense of pride in the country that had only formed forlornness during the times of the Syrian civil war, which began in 2011. Assad’s fall has also stirred complicated questions of identity, fidelity, and belonging.

Some of the Druze in the Golan Heights characterize themselves as “ Golanis ” and, unlike the 150,000 Druze who live in other corridor of Israel, do n't hold Israeli citizenship or serve in the IDF. Away in Israel, the Druze accepted Israeli sovereignty after the state’s founding in 1948 and generally identify as Israelis. Men from those Druze communities serve in the IDF.

The “ Golanis ” express an equivocal, nebulous relationship with Israel and an strange yet faithful relationship with Syria, a country that some of them have noway visited and yet call “ home. ”

Among the crowd of residers and intelligencers gathered near the border hedge was Wassim Safadi, a videographer who was born in Majdal Shams.

He watched Israeli dogfaces guarding the hedge, facing the hills of Syria. Soon after the fall of Assad’s government on Sunday, the IDF captured the buffer zone in the northern Golan Heights without facing any resistance. The service said the move was purely to insure that attacks are n't carried out against Israel.

Safadi mused about Assad’s fall. He said he watched the vids of captures being freed in Syria.

“ What felonious mind could do that to his own people? ” Safadi asked rhetorically. “ He pretended to be a leader of the Syrian world, but we see he’s a sissy. ”

Safadi said that he hopes to visit his family, who left Majdal Shams for Syria to get married in 2008. He has not seen her ago.

still, he also expressed wrathfulness “ We see how Israeli authorities treat us, ” he said. “ We pay levies then in Israel, but we’re still treated as third- class citizens. We hope that, one day, we will be suitable to live in equivalency then. ”

The Education Ministry blazoned in November a new academy class that will cover Druze history, culture, religion, and society, including “ the literal environment between the Druze community and the State of Israel. ”

Linda Hassan sells brooms made of outgrowths, exaggerated mats, and manual specialties that she said are only made in the Golan Heights, including rendered lamb fat with bits of meat.

“ We’re happy about what happed in Syria now, but we’re also hysterical , ” she said. “ When there’s a transition, you do n’t know what will be coming. ”

In Israel, Golan’s Druze are considered endless residers with access to healthcare, education, and other social services and freedom of movement inside Israel. Hassan said that one reason Druze in the Golan Heights could n't join the Israeli Army is that “ we’d be fighting against our relatives. 

“ Our lives are good then, ” she said. “ But our hearts are with Syria. ”