The change came on October 5, when Israel bombed an apparently abandoned building 15 miles from Damascus which it said was a training centre for Palestinian militants.

Since the collapse of peace talks between the late President Hafez al-Assad and the Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak in 2000, the Palestinian uprising has diverted attention the current road map for peace, sponsored by the US, the EU, the UN and Russia, hints at an eventual Israeli-Syrian settlement almost as an afterthought.īut in the eyes of many Syrians - as well as foreign diplomats in Damascus - the Golan is back on the agenda again. Thousands more were driven out when Israeli forces swept through the hills, and now live in camps dotted around Syria where their numbers have swelled to more than 400,000.įor the past 36 years recovering the Golan Heights - 460 square miles of fertile volcanic soil stretching down to the Sea of Galilee - has been the prime goal of Syria's foreign policy, but keeping the issue in the spotlight has often proved difficult. The Syrians on the other side - who nowadays number about 24,000 - have been living under Israeli occupation since 1967.

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