Help comes with dangerous strings for Syrian Druze town
The Golan Heights town of Hadar has been suffering essentially siege conditions throughout the Syrian war, surrounded by the warring factions and unfriendly neighbors and manipulated by aid from both the regime and Israel.
HADAR, Golan Heights — As the Syrian war continues into its seventh year with no sign of resolution, one town on the edge of Syria’s Golan Heights has had to fend off both opposition-led offensives and Israel's subjugation attempts over the last six years almost entirely on its own.
Hadar, a Druze town with a population of 10,000, according to local officials, has a unique story. Nestled on the Syrian face of Jabal al-Sheikh, Hadar directly faces the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, where the Shouting Valley separates it by just a few hundred meters from the Israeli-occupied Druze town of Majdal Shams. A few hundred meters up Jabal al-Sheikh, perched on its peak, sits one of Israel’s largest military intelligence stations. It carefully monitors all activity in the Golan on one side and in Lebanon’s Shebaa and beyond on the other.
Hadar’s other neighbors are armed groups belonging to both the Jordanian-backed Southern Front and the al-Qaeda affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra, now also known as Jabhat Fatah al-Sham. Between them, they control the villages and the remaining mountaintops overlooking Hadar.
The only access to Hadar is a small dirt track that winds around the mountain from a government-controlled road. On a good day, vehicles struggle to pass through. A particular point on the 20-minute journey from the main road to the town makes travelers clear targets for opposition snipers positioned in the mountains. The track is forced to close by opposition attacks as well as severe weather, and in past years civilians have struggled to bring in goods to survive the harsh winter months.
