The Golan Heights revisited

At a time when television news channels in the Middle East are spilling over with heart-wrenching stories of frightened children undergoing psychological counseling in their freshly bombed-out schools in Gaza, a reprise on the Golan Heights - the Syrian-Israeli conflict zone - may seem a little out of place, if not a downright invented crisis. This calendar-perfect rolling country, snuggled somewhere near the heart of parched holy lands, is the relatively quieter dispute in these parts.

What we can do is trace them as communities, through the broken-up numbers. While some 20,000 Syrians live in the Occupied Territories, 76,000 live in the part of Golan (roughly 600 square kilometers) that was restored to Syria after the Yom Kippur War of 1973. According to the report of a conference held in London in June 2007, there are also currently 346,000 displaced persons, like Hazira's family, living scattered across Damascus and other Syrian cities.

As was widely reported in the international media, before making the 1974 withdrawal, Israel left a trail of destruction in which schools, hospitals, villages and towns were razed. While the United Nations (UN) condemned the action and still does not recognize the Israeli occupation of Golan, the Syrian government continues to preserve Quneitra in its bombed-out state as a reminder of the Israeli action.