Шебаа фермалары: даулы аумақ

Small disputed territory between Lebanon and Israel

The Shebaa Farms, also spelled Sheba'a Farms (مزارع شبعا, ; Havot Sheba‘a), also known as Mount Dov (הר דב), is a small strip of land at the intersection of the Lebanese–Syrian border and the Israeli occupied Golan Heights. The territory is named for the farms within it which were historically tended by the inhabitants of the Lebanese town of Shebaa. It is about long and wide. The territory is currently disputed as either occupied Lebanese or occupied Syrian territory, in part from the failure of the French Mandate administrations and later the Lebanese and Syrian governments, to demarcate the border between Lebanon and Syria. Documents from the 1920s and 1930s indicate that inhabitants paid taxes to the Lebanese government. From the early 1950s to Israel's occupation of the Golan Heights in the Six Day War, Syria was the de facto ruling power. Israel considers it part of the Golan Heights and continues to hold it, along with the Golan, under military occupation. The territory has been a flashpoint for violence since Israel withdrew from Lebanon in May 2000. Hezbollah claimed that the withdrawal was not complete because Shebaa was on Lebanese – not Syrian – territory. Following the Israeli withdrawal, the United Nations Secretary General issued a statement proposing the area for the operations of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon; in the statement the controversy was described, with 81 different maps being studied; the UN concluded that there is no evidence of the abandoned farmlands being Lebanese, but proposed to maintain the existing boundaries of the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force in Syria (which had included the Shebaa Farms since 1967) "without prejudice" to any future agreement between Syria and Lebanon.

Shebaa Farms is an area about 9 km (5.5 mi) long, and 2.5 km (1.5 mi) wide; about 22 km2 (8 sq mi; 5,400 acres). The area contains 14 farms. The same report defines the southwestern limit as a line roughly following the foot of the ridge and starting at just over a kilometer northwest of Banias, then running northwest to the international Lebanese–Syrian border's sharp turning point 3.4 km east of Ghajar and 1.0 km "south of the (Lebanese) village of El Majidiye." This southwestern limit of Shebaa Farms comes within about 1 km of the 1949 Armistice Line, international border between Israel and Syria. The only overland route between Lebanon and Syria south of the Mount Hermon ridge used to run between these two lines. The small farms in this area have not been used since the Six Day War. The area includes heights overlooking parts of southern Lebanon and Israel to the west. Elevations range from about 250 to about 1,500 m (825–4,940 ft).

Lebanese press and officials often refer to the northern, higher part of the Shebaa Farms, just southeast of the Lebanese village of Kafr Shuba, as the Kafr Shuba Hills. The wide mountainous ridge in that part is called Jabel Rus (the mountain of the heads) in Arabic. Israel refers to this northern, higher part as Har Dov (Mount Dov) after Dov Rodberg, an IDF officer killed there in 1970.

The dispute over the sovereignty of Shebaa Farms resulted in part from the failure of the French Mandate administrations, and subsequently the Lebanese and Syrian governments, to demarcate the border between Lebanon and Syria. Documents from the 1920s and 1930s indicate that local inhabitants paid taxes to the Lebanese government, while French officials expressed confusion as to the actual location of the border. One French official in 1939 declared that the uncertainty was sure to cause trouble in the future. After the French Mandate ended in 1946, the land was administered by Syria and represented as such on maps of the time. The maps of the 1949 Armistice Agreements between Syria and Israel also designated the area as Syrian. Border disputes erupted from time to time, also with respect to land ownership in other border villages. Syria and Lebanon formed a joint Syrian Lebanese border committee in the late 1950s to demarcate a border between the two nations. In 1964, the committee suggested that the area be deemed the property of Lebanon and recommended that the international border be reestablished consistent with its suggestion. Neither Syria nor Lebanon adopted the committee's suggestion, and neither country took any action along the suggested lines. Thus, maps of the area continued to reflect the area as being in Syria.

In 1978 Israel invaded southern Lebanon in Operation Litani. The UN Security Council passed Resolution 425, calling on Israel "to withdraw forthwith its forces from all Lebanese territory". The phrase "all territory" was used in Resolution 425, in contrast to the language in Resolution 242 (1967), which led to semantic disputes. On 22 May 2000, Israel completed its withdrawal from southern Lebanon in accordance with Resolution 425. The UN certified the completion of Israel's pullout.

Between 2000 and 2005, Hezbollah attacked the IDF at Shebaa/Har Dov 33 times, resulting in seven Israeli soldiers killed in action, three taken prisoner, and dozens wounded. On 26 April 2024, an Israeli Bedouin truck driver was killed at Har Dov during infrastructure works as a result of an anti missile strike by Hezbollah.

In 2000, Lebanon disputed Israel's compliance with Resolution 425. Lebanon claimed that the Shebaa Farms area was actually Lebanese and demanded that the Israelis should therefore withdraw from there as well. Lebanon asserted that the UN certification of the Israeli withdrawal was "invalid", because of Lebanon's claim to the farms. Lebanese officials point to land deeds, stamped by the Lebanese government, that were held by a number of area residents in the 1940s and 1950s. The Lebanese claim to this area is asserted by Hezbollah for its hostilities with Israel and its cross border attacks after the Israeli withdrawal. Senior Lebanese officials also linked the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Shebaa to Hezbollah's disarmament. "If the U. S. and friendly countries help us achieve the withdrawal of Israel from Shebaa Farms, this would make it possible for the Lebanese forces to be the sole owner of weapons and arms in the country", Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Seniora said. Those comments were echoed by Lebanese President Émile Lahoud who said that "the resistance should be kept until a just and comprehensive peace is achieved in the region", adding that "if the Lebanese army were deployed along the borders (with Israel) it would be turned into a police force to protect Israel's borders, and this is not acceptable." Walid Jumblatt, a Lebanese Druze politician and leader of the Progressive Socialist Party, stated that Lebanon has no claims to the Shebaa Farms. The prime minister and president stated that Lebanon has a claim to the area. On 28 August 2006, Hezbollah fighters withdrew from positions facing Israeli occupation lines in the Shebaa Farms area. Maps published on the Lebanese army website show different versions of the Lebanese southern border. The Shebaa Farms are not marked on the maps but it is evident from one map that the border runs north of the Shebaa Farms, while another map marks the border south of the farms. According to the Arab newspaper, Al Hayat, "The issue over these farms was created to justify resistance operations from Lebanon after the UN had created the Blue Line following Israel's withdrawal from Lebanon. The Shebaa Farms were placed inside Syrian territory. Syria, which claims that the farms are Lebanese, has not presented a single document to the UN to prove it. Moreover, Syria refuses to demarcate its borders with Lebanon."

Syria has at times supported Lebanon's claim that the Shebaa Farms are part of Lebanon and not Syrian territory, at the UN and in official government press releases. But at other times it has made contrary statements. In August 1972, Syrian president Hafez al Assad said: "Syria and Lebanon are a single country." On 16 May 2000, the Syrian Foreign Minister, Farouq al Shara, indicated to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan in a telephone conversation that Syria supported Lebanon's claim. This was made public in the UN Press Release SC/6878 of 18 June 2000 which stated: "Concerning the Shab'a farmlands, both Lebanon and Syria state that this land belongs to Lebanon." In an interview with Assad reported by SANA on 24 August 2006, Assad flatly refused demarcation of the Syrian/Lebanese border near Shebaa Farms before a withdrawal of Israeli troops. Former Vice President of Syria Abdel Halim Khaddam, in an interview with the Lebanese Future Television on 27 August 2006, said: "Saying that the farms are occupied, and hence cannot be demarcated, is nothing but a pretext. The demarcation would not take more than an hour if there was a political will."

Israel claims that the area is not covered by UN Security Council Resolution 425, which governed Israel's withdrawal from Lebanon, stating that the Farms were not Lebanese territory. In support of that view, Israel points to the fact that the UN certified Israel's pullout from Lebanon as having been completed. In June 2008, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice visited Beirut, stating that "the United States believes that the time has come to deal with the Shebaa Farms issue in accordance with [U. N. Security Council Resolution] 1701."

The Arab League backed Lebanon's claim with a communique issued at Arab League's 13th session in 2001, asking for "complete Israeli withdrawal from all occupied Palestinian territory, including Jerusalem, from the occupied Syrian Golan Heights to the line of 4 June 1967 and from the remaining occupied Lebanese territory up to the internationally recognized borders, including the Shab`a farmlands".

In 2002, Asher Kaufman of the Harry S. Truman Research Institute at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, discovered previously unknown documents in French government archives. In one, French litigants in a private dispute entered into a private commercial agreement that suggested that the border should put the Farms in Lebanon. Two other documents, from 1937 and 1939, were reports from the administrative councilor of south Lebanon and the head of the Services Spéciaux in the Syrian town of Quneitra. They noted a discrepancy between the border, as determined by the 1:200,000 Ottoman map, and their view of the "reality" in the region. Collecting "unofficial information" from "various sources," they concluded that in their view the area was Lebanese. Their conclusion was based on the facts that: a) some area residents paid taxes to Lebanon; and b) three or four sheep pens in the Farms belonged to residents of the Lebanese village of Shaba. In a book published in 1988, Moshe Brawer, an Israeli geographer, mentions two French maps published in 1932 and 1946, the former shows the farm area as being part of Lebanon while the latter shows the area as a Syrian territory.

Former US president Jimmy Carter suggested in the Washington Post on 1 August 2006, that: "Israel should withdraw from all Lebanese territory, including Shebaa Farms."

Sobelman, Daniel. New Rules of the Game: Israel and Hizbollah after the Withdrawal from Lebanon, Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies, Tel Aviv University, 2004.