Israel 7.2

Today was spent in the Golan Heights. This area use to belong to Syria, until the 6 day war in 1967. Israel needs the Golan Heights for many reasons, namely, water. From 1948 to 1967, Israel had the water from the Golan Heights (which is all from the Kineret, or Sea of Galilee), but all the land directly northeast of this belonged to Syria, adn in that 19 years, Syria bombed the north of Israel daily, with artillery and snipers. There was a settlement in the Israeli part of the Golan Heights where an entire generation of children grew up living in bomb shelters, running from place to place when they had to go outside, to avoid sniper fire.

The Syrians also tried to cut of Israel's water supply by digging a trench that would re-route the tributaries to the Kineret. Their attempts were sabotaged by Israel. Finally, in 1967, while Israel was fighting Egypt and Jordan, they attacked Syria as well and took the Golan Heights.

Today we went to a former Syrian outpost and saw their bunkers, rusted-out trucks, and trenches. We saw the settlement that the Syrians attacked. The outpost itself has been turned into a memorial for Israelis who were killed by Syrian attacks. All around it are mine fields. They are surrounded by barbed-wire fences with DANGER-LIVE MINES signs posted. The Israelis don't have the maps to the minefields and it's too difficult and expensive to remove them, so they are just there, forever.

We also passed destroyed Syrian settlements and many Israeli outposts and training grounds. The border between Israel and Syria is the most heavily-fortified border in the world, expect for possibly the one between North and South Korea. As we were driving through the area, we saw a group of Israeli soldiers cleaning and repairing about 5 or 6 tanks. They were cleaning the turrets of the guns, using long poles with cloth on the ends, sort of like giant Q-tips. Itzi stopped the bus and we waited while Ido got out and asked the commander if we could go over and look at the tanks. Then we all met the commander and looked at the tanks and watched the soldiers working. We were allowed to climb on a tank, and ask all the questions we wanted about the different parts, but we couldn't go inside it, or take pictures of the inside.

The dust around the tanks was intense. The soldiers' faces, lips, hands, ears, every part of them was dark and caked with it. As a truck drove by, clouds of dust rolled off of the ground, enveloping the truck and rolling off of it in waves.