Occupied Golan residents recall their Tahrir

Residents of the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights celebrate their Arab identity as a form of resistance.

Syrian residents of the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights march to commemorate their 1982 uprising

Siham Monder was 14 when Syrian residents of the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights took to the streets for a strike and protests that spanned six months of 1982.

"Now I'm 43," Monder says. "And I remember that every day in that period there was a conflict with the [Israeli army]. There were more soldiers here than residents."

While the Israeli military occupation of the Golan began after the 1967 war, the strike and protests started on February 14, 1982, two months after the Israeli knesset passed the Golan Heights Law, legislation that effectively annexed the territory.

The Israeli move was condemned by both the US and the United Nations - the latter has issued multiple resolutions against the annexation - and it remains unrecognised by the international community.

Here, in the Golan, the annexation was embodied by the army's effort to distribute blue Israeli identity cards. In 1982, some 15,000 soldiers came to deliver the IDs to Syrian residents, a group that numbered less than 10,000 at the time.
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