On This Day

Learn about the history of the Palestinian struggle for freedom, equality and justice by exploring major events in the history of their oppression on this day of the year.

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22 February

quneitraJNF CARRIED OUT DEVASTATION OF SYRIAN TOWN
On this day in 1975, the UN Commission on Human Rights voted to condemn Israel’s "deliberate destruction and devastation" of Quneitra city prior to their withdrawal, including almost 4,000 buildings and a large amount of infrastructure. Amos Harel, leader of local Israeli settlement, said “The tractors of the Jewish National Fund did the destroying. They weren't our tractors”. Le Monde reported Hebrew inscriptions on walls: "There'll be another round" and "You want Quneitra, you'll have it - destroyed".

 

نفذت منظمة الصندوق القومي اليهودي(ج ن ف ) دمارا في المدينة السورية

22 فبراير

في مثل هذا اليوم من عام 1975 ، صوتت لجنة الأمم المتحدة لحقوق الإنسان لإدانة "الهدم والتدمير الإسرائيلي المتعمد" لمدينة القنيطرة قبل انسحاب قواتها ، بما في ذلك ما يقرب من 4000 مبنى وعدد كبير من البنية التحتية. وقال عاموس هرئيل ، زعيم مستوطنة إسرائيلية محلية ، "جرارات الصندوق القومي اليهودي هي التي قامت بالتدمير. لم تكن جراراتنا ". نشرت صحيفة لوموند نقوشاً عبرية على الجدران: "ستكون هناك جولة أخرى" و "اذا اردتم القنيطرة ، ستأخذوها مدمرة".

A US Foreign Service Officer recalls that in 1973

"To the world’s surprise, before the Israelis withdrew, they deliberately destroyed the entire town. Every house was destroyed, with the exception of two or three buildings carved from stone caves. The Israelis also damaged a mosque and the village church. When people entered the church...they found that everything inside had been looted. In the church’s underground tombs, every casket had been broken into and any jewelry had been stolen. Some of the bodies were left on the ground.

"The United States resumed diplomatic relations with Syria in 1974 and it became possible to see the damage done by the Israelis in Quneitra...Dozens of people saw for the first time what the Israelis had done...the awful reality of a medium-sized town completely destroyed remained obvious...

"A week later I arrived in Israel and was given a car to do whatever I wanted for three or four days. I went first to see the new Jewish settlers in what had been Syria, who were living in extraordinary luxury with new houses and community swimming pools."

NOTE: Journalist and author Marion Woolfson, SPSC Honorary President till her death in 2012, entered Quneitra shortly after the Israeli withdrawal. She confirmed in a personal conversation in 2011 that she had witnessed the shocking evidence of the Israeli grave robbery, the pillage of the tombs in the church, the removal of jewellery from the corpses - and worse.

According to The Times in the UK, a report broadcast on a UK TV news programme meant that

"viewers were thus afforded a panoramic view of the city..It could be seen that many of the buildings were damaged, but most of them were still standing." After it was handed over, however, "very few buildings were left standing. Most of those destroyed did not present the jagged outline and random heaps of rubble usually produced by artillery or aerial bombardment. The roofs lay flat on the ground, 'pancaked' in a manner which I am told can only be achieved by systematic dynamiting of the support walls inside." The Times concluded that the footage "establishes beyond reasonable doubt that much of the destruction took place after 12 May—at a time when there was no fighting anywhere near Kuneitra."

An Israeli settler later recalled:

"these two strange ideas came up. One was to establish a [Jewish] settlement in Quneitra and the second was to destroy [Syrian] Quneitra...The leaders of a nearby Jewish colony initiated the destruction of Quneitra, which was carried out by the Land Development Administration of the Jewish National Fund.

The Head of Northern Command marked on a map the buildings the army needed. According to the settlers:
"He took a felt pen and marked the hospital and a few other places – he wrote "not for destruction" and on other places he wrote "for destruction" and he signed. He thought he was signing about what not to destroy but he was actually writing to destroy . . . The tractors of the Jewish National Fund did the destroying. They weren't our tractors . . . I can tell you that even the tractor drivers were Arabs."
Yigal Kipnis, The Golan Heights: Political History, Settlement and Geography since 1949, (p160)

Le Monde's Syria correspondent, in a report for The Times, gave a detailed eyewitness description of the destruction:

Today the city is unrecognisable. The houses with their roofs lying on the ground look like gravestones. Parts of the rubble are covered with fresh earth furrowed by bulldozer tracks. Everywhere there are fragments of furniture, discarded kitchen utensils, Hebrew newspapers dating from the first week of June; here a ripped-up mattress, there the springs of an old sofa. On the few sections of wall still standing, Hebrew inscriptions proclaim: "There'll be another round"; "You want Quneitra, you'll have it destroyed."
'Golan's capital turns into heap of stones'. The Times, 10 July 1974