As night fell on Dec. 8, the flag of the Syrian revolution flooded the streets of Majdal Shams, in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. Gathering in the town’s central square — dominated by the statue of Sultan Al-Atrash, who led the Great Syrian Revolt against the French colonial administration here a century ago — residents sang songs of jubilation, and chanted “The Syrian people are one.”

For these Druze residents — many of whom are not Israeli citizens, reject the state’s authority, and instead hold onto their Syrian identity — the events transpiring only a few kilometers across the border will have a direct impact on their lives. Most of them have relatives in Syria, and many even studied at Syrian universities prior to the outbreak of the civil war in 2011.

“I’ve waited my whole life for this moment,” Shehada Nasrallah, one of those celebrating in the town square on Monday night, told +972. “I dreamed of Bashar Al-Assad’s downfall. The man killed and destroyed all of Syria,” he continued, adding that some of his friends were killed by the Assad regime. 

“The scenes from Damascus and other Syrian cities bring happiness, and I only wish that many of my friends were still alive to witness these moments,” Nasrallah said, expressing hope that Syria will become a democratic country “as it deserves to be,” and that Syrians will be able to live “without fear of the regime or Islamist groups.” 

Until now, many critics of the Assad regime in the Jawlan, as the Golan Heights is known in Arabic, refrained from expressing their views for fear of retaliation against their relatives in Syria. Among the few who openly expressed opposition to the Syrian government in recent years was Malham Abu Saleh, a resident of Majdal Shams.  

Abu Saleh explained that most residents of the Jawlan who wished to see the end of Assad’s regime had lost hope that this day would ever come, particularly after the missile strike in late July on a soccer field in Majdal Shams that killed 12 children — for which Israel blamed Hezbollah, and Hezbollah blamed Israel. “This disaster amplified voices calling for ‘Israelization’ among the Jawlan’s residents,” he said. “Coupled with the wars in Gaza and Lebanon, it led us to believe that the possibility of liberation for the Syrian people had grown more distant.” 

But things changed quickly. “When rebels began advancing into the western outskirts of Aleppo last week, we thought it was just ‘routine’ incidents,” Abu Saleh said. “But after they entered the city and the regime retreated so easily, we started to understand that something different was taking place.

“It may take years to understand what really happened, how Bashar Al-Assad surrendered so easily, and what occurred behind the scenes,” Abu Saleh continued. “But soon, the world will learn about the massacres that took place in Syria and the mass graves. The Syrian Holocaust will be a black stain on the history of humanity.”

Growing disillusionment with Assad

Like their fellow Syrians across the border, the civil war left residents of the Jawlan politically divided, with some supporting the regime and others aligning with an opposition that soon fractured into many factions, including extreme Islamist groups. Historically, most Syrians in the Jawlan have supported the Assad regime, or at least refrained from opposing it. Until the regime’s fall, its flag was hoisted aloft in their villages, and no local leaders attended Monday’s celebratory rally in Majdal Shams. 

“It’s still hard for us to believe the regime fell so quickly,” one resident, who wished to remain anonymous, told +972. ”For all its corruption and injustices, this regime would not have fallen had it joined the ‘Israel normalization camp,’ left the Axis of Resistance, and stopped supporting Hezbollah. We believe it was a victim of a conspiracy supported by Western countries and Israel.”

A young man from Ghajar — a village in the northern Jawlan that borders Lebanon, and whose residents are mostly Alawite like the Assads  — also spoke to +972 on the condition of anonymity about why he had backed the regime. 

“Our support was not driven by sectarian motives,” he explained. “Despite the regime’s corruption, the opposition groups, with their extreme Islamist ideologies, posed a danger to Syria, and especially to minorities,” he continued. “They were clearly backed by external actors, and it’s obvious that countries like Turkey, Qatar, and the United States do not genuinely care about the Syrian people’s welfare or freedom.

“This was the reason for our support for Assad,” he went on. “We saw him as an educated leader attempting to implement reforms and improvements, and we understood that the war was forced upon him, leaving him no choice but to fight to preserve Syria’s unity.” 

Assad’s speedy downfall was deeply disappointing to many of the residents of Ghajar. “His nighttime escape — without a word of apology, a message to his supporters, or an explanation — was surprising and insulting to many Syrians who personally believed in him,” the man said. “Now, we hope that the situation in Syria improves and that the coming days will be better, despite our many doubts.”

The sense of disappointment in Assad is shared by many residents of the Jawlan. “At the  beginning, most people supported the regime,” Majd Mughrabi, a lawyer from the town of Buq’ata, told +972. “Our connection with Damascus was good: it funded education for students like me from the Jawlan in Syrian universities, and at times the Syrian state even purchased apples from the farmers here.”

Mughrabi explained that many residents continued to support the regime after 2011, believing that the West and other foreign actors were conspiring against the Syrian government and fearing that the opposition was being dominated by extreme Islamist groups. But, he said, “over time, support began to weaken, and now we see many who are happy about its downfall.” 

Mughrabi was in Damascus when the uprising began, back in 2011. “In the first few months of demonstrations, I saw that some of the protesters in the streets were my friends,” he recalled. “At a protest in the Al-Mazzeh neighborhood, where I lived, some of them were arrested and accused of treason. 

“They weren’t armed; this wasn’t ISIS or Jabhat Al-Nusra,” he continued. “I knew them well and knew they were patriotic young people demanding nothing but freedom and reform, and the regime responded with brutality and repression. I saw it with my own eyes. I realized this was a cruel regime that persecutes innocent people.”

After Mughrabi became an active supporter of the revolution, Syrian authorities expelled him back to the Jawlan. “I went to assist refugees at a school in the Yarmouk refugee camp, but Syrian intelligence agents identified me there,” he explained. “I was summoned for questioning and explicitly told: ‘If you weren’t from the Jawlan, we would treat you differently. Only because you are from the Jawlan, will we settle for expelling you.’” 

‘We know the crisis hasn’t ended’

Concerns about Syria’s future continue to trouble residents of Syria and the Jawlan alike. Abu Mohammad Al-Jolani — who led the military operation that brought about Assad’s overthrow, and whose own family was expelled from the Jawlan during Israel’s occupation of the territory in 1967 — founded the Islamist group Jabhat Al-Nusra as an offshoot of Al-Qaeda, before rebranding the group as Hay’at Tahrir Al-Sham.

“So far, there are positive signs, such as the lack of attacks on religious minorities, the initiation of dialogue with some of them, understandings with the previous government, and a smooth and quiet transfer of power,” Abu Saleh, of Majdal Shams, explained. “But we know the crisis has not ended.” 

Mughrabi, meanwhile, was optimistic that things would be better. “Even if the devil himself came along, he would not reach the level of cruelty of this regime,” he said. “If it had been up to Syrians alone, the regime would have fallen years ago. It began as a peaceful revolution with noble objectives, but the regime’s brutality along with external intervention drove it to become violent.”

As with any significant political event in Syria, Assad’s downfall raised questions about the future of the Jawlan itself, which Israel illegally annexed in 1981. These questions became all the more urgent after Israel swiftly announced the cancellation of the 1974 Disengagement Agreement, which had created a demilitarized buffer zone between the areas under Israeli and Syrian control. Israeli forces soon began advancing into this buffer zone and beyond, occupying several villages and the Syrian side of Mount Hermon/Jabal A-Shaykh.

“I do not believe Israel has legitimacy to remain in Syrian territories,” Abu Saleh said. “Aside from [President-elect Donald] Trump, the entire world agrees that the Jawlan is Syrian and does not accept the [Israeli] occupation. So how can it accept the occupation of additional territories now?” 

For now, though, many residents of the Jawlan, like their countrymen in Syria, are simply celebrating the fall of a brutal regime that has controlled their lives for more than half a century. “From the Jawlan that has been sold [to Israel], we send our love to the great Syrian people, to the young men and women who rose up and overthrew this corrupt and murderous regime,” Samah Abu Jabal, a resident of Majdal Shams, exclaimed.

Oren Ziv assisted with this report. A version of the article was first published in Hebrew on Local Call. Read it here.