Quneitra
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القنيطرة / al-Qunaiṭira (Arabic) קוניטרה Kuneitra (Hebrew) Quneitra |
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| Coordinates | 33 ° 7 ′ N , 35 ° 50 ′ E | ||
| Basic data | |||
| Country | Syria | ||
| Quneitra | |||
| ISO 3166-2 | SY-QU | ||
| height | 940 m | ||
| Residents | 40 | ||
 Quneitra in September 2001
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Quneitra ( Arabic القنيطرة, DMG al-Qunaiṭira , Hebrew קוניטרה Kuneitra , also Qunaitra ) is a city on the Golan Heights in southwest Syria . After the withdrawal of the Israeli troops in 1974 at the end of the Yom Kippur War , the city was completely destroyed and has been controlled by the UNDOF ever since .
description
Quneitra is located at an altitude of 985 meters about 60 kilometers southwest of Damascus . The Syrian governorate of the same name is largely occupied by Israel and was annexed by Israel in 1981 ; the annexation was declared null and void at a special UN meeting in 1982 . Quneitra is located in a strip controlled by the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force and Syrian police officers directly on the border with the Israeli-occupied Golan. A visit to the city in May 2011 was only possible with a special permit from the Syrian Interior Ministry.
history
The place was founded in the 19th century during the Ottoman Empire . In 1840 a few families lived here for a few years, who may have been settled on the instructions of Ibrahim Pascha . From 1873 to 1890 Circassians expelled from the Caucasus were settled here in order to control Arab insurgents. The first came via the intermediate station Sivas in Anatolia . At first they limited themselves to cattle breeding, as their Arab neighbors did not grant them any arable land. In 1878 there were 300 to 400 Circassians, the number of which threatened to decrease. In the same year 2000 Circassians from Bulgaria were added, who started farming and founded new settlements in the area. A report from the following year described a functioning economy and counted about 100 small houses in Quneitra. Around 1885 the Circassians lived in twelve larger villages in the area. Quneitra itself owned 260 houses in which 1,300 people lived.
In 1932 the capital of the Golan had 1200, almost exclusively Circassian residents, a hotel, a post office, a police station and a customs post.
In 1967, shortly before the Six Day War , 29,400 people lived in the city. After the conquest by Israel, the kibbutz Merom Golan was founded four kilometers west . In the 1973 Yom Kippur War , the city was recaptured by the Syrian army .
Before the Israeli troops withdrew in 1974 to hand them over to UN peacekeepers, the 37,000 residents had to leave the city and, according to the Syrian side, Quneitra was then destroyed by the Israeli army. The UN confirmed this information. According to Israeli reports, however, Quneitra was destroyed by Syrian artillery as early as 1973.
Currently only four Christian families and soldiers from the UN security contingent stationed there live in the village. Quneitra is now a mined ghost town that can only be visited in the company of Syrian security personnel or UN troops. It is presented to the Syrian public as an example of the callous behavior of the Israeli army. In Damascus there is a museum, the "October War Panorama", which contains a model of Quneitra and a film documents the Syrian view of the conflict over the city.
In November 2016, during the Syrian civil war , the city was under the control of the Sunni extremists of the al-Nusra Front .
Border crossing
West of the city is the only border crossing between Syria and Israel. This was closed as a result of the Syrian civil war and reopened on October 15, 2018.
Web links
- Christoph Sydow: Quneitra - the abandoned city. Alsharq blog, March 14, 2006
Individual evidence
- ↑ Federal Foreign Office : Travel and Security Advice Syria Retrieved on May 23, 2011.
- ^ Norman N. Lewis: Nomads and settlers in Syria and Jordan, 1800–1980. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1987, pp. 104 f
- ↑ Naval Intelligence Division (ed.): Syria. BR 513 (Restricted). Geographical Handbook Series. April 1943. Archive Editions, Buckinghamshire 1987, pp. 137, 227
- ^ " Report of the Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices Affecting the Human Rights of the Population of the Occupied Territories ", United Nations General Assembly Resolution 3240, November 29, 1974, A / RES / 3240, unispal ( Memento of the original, January 3 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. .
- ^ Robert Fisk: "A view of the Syrian war from the Golan Heights" The Independent of November 5, 2016
- ↑ On site: On the Golan with a view of the Quneitra border crossing. In: Israelnetz .de. October 29, 2018, accessed November 18, 2018 .
