Violations of the Israeli occupation continue against the archaeological heritage sites in the occupied Syrian Golan
The frenzied attempts of the Israeli occupation entity since its occupation of the Syrian Arab Golan in June 1967 failed to find evidence to prove the validity of its claims of any presence on this precious part of the homeland.
Since the first months of the occupation, the Israeli authorities have conducted archaeological surveys and excavations in the Golan in an effort to falsify historical facts and subsequently plunder, steal and sell Syrian antiquities.
In a scientific paper entitled “Zionist violations of the antiquities of the occupied Syrian Golan and attempts to distort its Arab cultural heritage ,” Dr. Camellia Abu Jabal, a professor at the University of Damascus, Department of History stated that the so-called Antiquities Authority of the Israeli occupation entity has sought in addition to various Zionist institutions to distort and falsify the history and antiquities of the occupied Syrian Golan.
She referred to articles published by the occupation entity's newspapers about the thefts of the Golan antiquities since the first months of its occupation, when Moshe Dayan, the Israeli Minister of War at the time, stole artifacts from sites in the village of Al-Fakhoura in the middle of the Golan including the crown of a large column of basalt marble that had on its head a seven-legged candlestick.
According to Dr. Abu Jabal, the systematic violations of the Israeli occupation of the antiquities of the occupied Syrian Golan began in 1968 through excavation acts carried out in the town of Banias, north of the Golan . This was revealed by workers of the archeology field in the occupation entity.Later these violations would take new dimensions with the formation of a mission called “The Land of Gishour” in the south of the Golan.
Abu Jabal, daughter of the town of Majdal Shams, confirmed that all these Israeli attempts have not succeeded in changing the identity of the Syrian Arab Golan, despite what the occupation authorities have found in terms of archaeological sites in the Golan which reach more than 200 sites.
She pointed out that the occupation authorities sought to compose alleged stories based on the falsification of some monuments and archaeological evidence in the occupied Syrian Golan as happened in the excavations of the sites of “Khirbet al-Daliyah, Ad-Dararah, and Deir al-Aziz”.
The professor added the Israeli occupation authorities demolished more than 110 Syrian villages with their archaeological sites and removed the cultural and human antiquities.
Dr. Abu Jabal underlined that the archaeological sites in the occupied Syrian Golan were greatly damaged as a result of using them by the occupation forces to carry out their maneuvers in addition to replacing their Arabic names with Hebrew ones in order to hide their historical evidence and features , including the hills of Abu Nada, Al-Aram and Sheikha.
She revealed that in return for the systematic destruction of most of the Syrian archaeological sites by the occupation authorities, they kept other sites to be used for tourism, as was the case in the two archaeological sites of Rujm Al-Hiri and the Church of the Chair, as well as the stones of archaeological sites which were used to build military facilities in the occupied Syrian Golan.
Dr. Abu Jabal indicated that the number of the archaeological missions of the occupation operating in the occupied Syrian Golan exceeded 15 distributed over many regions, villages and towns including “Khasfin Wafiq, Wadi Hariri, Tal Al-Barouk, Deir Qurouh, Khirbat Al-Rafid and others.
She underscored the occupation authorities’ blatant violation of international laws and charters through their violations against the Syrian archaeological heritage in the occupied Syrian Golan including acts of looting, forgery, vandalism of sites, theft and transfer of their precious artifacts , noting that international law prohibits carrying out excavations of antiquities in the occupied territories.
In light of what the archaeological heritage in the Syrian Golan is exposed to by the occupation authorities, Dr. Abu Jabal stressed the extremely important role of the people of the Golan in resisting these plans, as they always affirm their categorical rejection of all the decisions taken by the occupation authorities aiming to change the identity of the Syrian Arab Golan.
Rawaa Ghanam