SYRIA/GOLAN HEIGHTS: Druze family split by borders and bureaucracy strive to unite

Record ID: 280008

  • Title: SYRIA/GOLAN HEIGHTS: Druze family split by borders and bureaucracy strive to unite
  • Date: 4th June 2008
  • Summary: (MER-1) SAHNAIAH, SOUTH OF DAMASCUS, SYRIA (RECENT) (REUTERS): VARIOUS OF ABDO LOOKING AT PICTURES OF HER HUSBAND
  • Embargoed: 19th June 2008 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: International Relations,Light / Amusing / Unusual / Quirky
  • Reuters ID: LVACFUUPCJD6XYNYA1BB4ENQPDGF
  • Story Text: It is almost a year since Kalim Abu Saleh, a Druze from the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, has been able to see with his wife and two children who live in Damascus, Syria. Caught between confronting Syrian and Israeli nationality rules, the divided young family faces the possibility of permanent separation.
    Kalim Abu Saleh takes a short walk outside his village in the Golan Heights to look across the border over to Syria, where his wife and two children are stranded with a national status that does not allow them to meet.
    Abu Saleh is a Syrian Druze and a resident of the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. He resides on the strategic plateau of about 1,200 kilometres (460 square miles) between Israel and Syria with his extended family amongst a community of some 20,000 Druze. His wife, Kinda Abdo, is a Druze resident of neighbouring Syria.
    Druze, descendants of Islam whose religion was born in the 11th century in Egypt, are centred in Israel, Syria and Lebanon. They share common heritage and family ties.
    But despite their common religious identity, Kalim and Kinda's nationalities jeopardise their chances of living together.
    After Israel captured the Golan Heights in 1967 Middle East war and annexed it in 1981 in a move not recognized internationally, it gave the Druze the option of Israeli citizenship, though most rejected it. Most Golan Heights residents bear an Israeli-issued ID card giving them residency in the Golan Heights. Under an internationally-fostered agreement, Israel allows Druze to travel to Syria for studies.
    Under the Fourth Geneva Convention, civilians living under occupation fall within the Red Cross protection mandate. Every year since 1978, the ICRC delegations in Damascus and Tel Aviv have made it possible for hundreds of students to move back and forth across the line to study in Syrian universities. Once a year, it arranges for Druze pilgrims to be able to visit holy sites in their mother land Syria.
    Abu Saleh moved to Damascus 15 years ago to study at the Damascus University, and later married his wife in the Syrian capital.

    "I studied of course and finished my studies. In the last year of my studies I met Kinda, my wife. After seven years of living away from my family (in the Golan Heights), I felt how difficult it was to be cut off from my family and how hard it was to stay in touch with them, so we decided that I had to go back," Abu Saleh said.
    After his student visa expired and he could no longer stay in Syria, Abu Saleh had to make a choice: either stay in Syria and give up his residency status in the Golan Heights, which meant disconnecting from his family there for good, or move back to the captured territory and apply for an entry permit for his wife and children, who will then have to give up their Syrian nationality. Either way, it would be a one-way-ticket move.
    Abu Saleh decided to leave Syria and moved back to his family's village Majdal Shams, in the northern Golan Heights, four months before his youngest baby boy was born. Despite numerous trips to official Israeli offices, he has not received permission from Israeli authorities to bring his wife and children with him.

    "It has been nine months since I got back, and I am living through this hardship of applying for papers, calling, and I am always met by inhumanity, and they tell me to be patient," said Abu Saleh.
    Abu Saleh said he applied to the Israeli interior MInistry for permits, but a spokesman for the ministry in Jerusalem said it was not aware of his case. The spokesman also said that previous applications from Syrian brides to unite with their husbands in the Golan Heights have taken months and even years, and that Israel deals with hundreds of applications from Druze each year.
    Across the border, 37-year-old Kinda, 5-year-old Adam and 5-month-old Taym live in a small apartment in Damascus, and worry that the chances of reuniting with Kalim are slim.

    "A very small barrier separates me from Kalim, we need only thirty minutes to get to where he is, but we cannot see him. It's been a whole year and I do not know until when it may last. I am scared that the duration may get longer, then our situation will get much worse," Kinda Abdo said.
    She said the mental struggle to keep the hope alive gets harder rather than easier with time.

    "It is a tragic situation. Even Adam has not got used to his father's absence yet. He used to wait for him to play. Suddenly, he (Kalim) left and we had hope that it would not take more than two to six months to go there. Now we have not seen him for about a year. Psychologically, I am crushed," Kinda said.
    Abu Saleh expects that his family's move to the Golan Heights would entail many difficulties, but he still wishes for one thing only.

    "I am asking for is a simple thing. Just unify a family for a humanitarian reason," he said.
    Meanwhile, Kalim and Kinda maintain connection through telephone calls and occasionally look at each other's photos to reminisce on the eight years they spent together in Syria.

    "I want to go see Daddy now in the Golan," 5-year-old Adam said. "I miss him a lot. I love you very much," he said looking at the camera, with a smile.
    The Golan Heights stand at the heart of the conflict between Israel and Syria. Syria tried to regain the Golan Heights in the 1973 Middle East war, but the assault was thwarted. The two signed an armistice in 1974 and the Golan has been relatively quiet since. In 2000, Israel and Syria held their highest-level talks over a possible return of the Golan and a peace agreement.
    But the negotiations collapsed. Last month Jerusalem and Damascus announced they were holding indirect talks, mediated by Turkey.
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