Separating Families in the Golan Heights
by Aisha Gawad
Your wedding day is supposed to be the happiest day of your life, right? Well for about 580 women living in the Golan Heights, marriage came with bittersweet consequences. As they started new lives with their husbands, they were forced to say goodbye to their families at home, not knowing when they would ever be together again. These women, primarily Druze, are originally from Syria and moved to the Israeli-occupied Golan region in order to be with their husbands. Because Syria is considered an "enemy state" by Israel, the women are not allowed to return to visit mothers, fathers, sisters and brothers, according to an article in IRIN, a news service of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
A group calling itself The Women of the Occupied Arab-Syrian Golan protested in front of the Red Cross in Jerusalem recently, demanding that Israel give them the right to cross the border into Syria. Currently, only students, Druze priests, and UN peacekeeping forces are allowed through the Queneitra Crossing, the military passage connecting Syria and the occupied Golan. The group argues that if students and priests are allowed to cross, women who just want to visit their families should also be able to.
The women can apply on an individual basis for permits to travel between the regions, but the process is long and inefficient, and the Druze women complain that many of the requests go completely unanswered by the Israeli Interior Ministry.
Sections of the Golan were captured and occupied by Israel after the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, and several Druze villages suddenly found themselves part of Israel. Israel formally annexed the region in the 1980s, despite fierce protests from the villagers who were separated from their families in Syria. There are currently around 19,000 Druze living in the Golan Heights, and although they carry Israeli citizenship, most of them still consider Syria their home. The separation has even spawned the practice of videotaping funerals so family members on the other side can watch. Daughters who married men in the Golan region have children their grandparents have never even met.
"The separation of families is one of the most serious consequences of the occupation in the Golan which needs to be addressed," Paul Conneally, deputy head of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories told the IRIN. "It is a priority humanitarian issue. We have been pursuing this with the highest Israeli authorities. The problem has been persisting for far too long."
But for now, Israel is showing no signs of loosening the policies governing the Queneitra Crossings. Already forced into Israeli borders by the iron-fisted occupation, Druze women must travel to a third country, like Jordan, if they want any chance of seeing their family members. Instead of working to diffuse tensions with a so-called "enemy nation," Israel is alienating the very citizens who might be able to serve as a bridge between the country they now reside in, and the loved ones they left behind.
