SYRIA: Golan students leave university friends in Syria for good when they return home

Record ID: 279512

  • Title: SYRIA: Golan students leave university friends in Syria for good when they return home
  • Date: 14th March 2007
  • Summary: HAMADA MADDAH WALKING THROUGH BORDER CROSSING POINT THE STUDENTS WALKING IN NO MAN'S LAND THE STUDENTS APPROACHING THE ISRAELI SIDE OF THE CROSSING POINT THE PARTITION ON THE SYRIAN SIDE CLOSING THE ISRAELI SIDE OF THE CROSSING POINT/ BARBED WIRE IN FOREGROUND
  • Embargoed: 29th March 2007 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: Education
  • Reuters ID: LVABR917X8EVXI47LM7QBU8JTT48
  • Story Text: A group of recent university graduates tearfully made their way from Syria across no man's land to return to their families in the Golan Heights.
    Knowing they may never again see the friends they made during their years at university in Damascus, the young Golan Druze men and women bid their Syrian friends an emotional goodbye before walking down a narrow asphalt road running about 500 metres between minefields from Israeli-held territory to the Israeli-occupied plateau which was Syrian land until 40 years ago.
    A number of students from the Golan travel each year to their elders' former mother country Syria to study at universities there, preferring Arab academic institutions to Israeli universities which tutor mostly in Hebrew.
    There are no diplomatic ties between Israel and Syria. But, according to a deal made with Israeli authorities, the Golan students are allowed to study in Syria but must return to their towns and villages on completion of their studies or never be allowed home again.
    On Monday (March 12), the newest group of Golan graduates walked towards a United Nations post midway between Syria and the Israeli-occupied territory.
    "We hope there will be peace in order to solve this crisis that we live through everyday. How are we going to go back and leave our friends, lives, and new-found families? There are a hundred conflicts going on inside of us," said Salam Jreira, one of the Golan graduates, said.
    Israel captured the Golan Heights plateau in the 1967 Middle East war. Syria wants it back as the price for any future peace agreement between them.
    The two countries are formally at war. Their only tenuous link is the Golan crossing between Syria and the Israeli border post, known as both Alpha Gate and the Quneitra border crossing point.
    It is technically only a UN crossing but students, brides and pilgrims use it under humanitarian circumstances.
    The Golan Druze belong to a secretive Islamic sect dispersed in Syria, Lebanon, and Israel. Many families were separated between Israel and Syria after the disengagement lines were drawn after the 1967 war.
    Now they call across to each other from what is popularly known as the Shouting Wall, or arrange marriages for their children.
    The arrangement started after 1981 when Israel annexed the Golan Heights.
    "I wish we did not have to leave this place where we studied, and I wish that we could keep travelling back and forth. It's difficult," said Hamada Maddah, another young graduate who waved goodbye to his friends before passing through the crossing point gate on his way home.
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