“I feel like I’m dreaming,” Rima Hassoun said as she stood at the fence separating Israel from Syria in the occupied Golan Heights. A resident of Majdal Shams, a Druze town on the Israeli side of the fence, Hassoun had grown up in Damascus before moving across the border to live with her husband when they married. When +972 Magazine met her on Thursday morning, she had just seen her younger brother for the first time since 1999.

The previous day, more than 1,000 Druze are estimated to have crossed from Israel into Syria through the usually impenetrable border fence. They were responding to a call from Muwaffaq Tarif, the spiritual leader of the Druze community in Israel, to “prepare by any means necessary to cross the border and assist our brothers being slaughtered in Syria” — a reference to the killing of 300 Druze in the southern Syrian city of Suwayda earlier this week, more than 80 of whom were executed by regime forces, after a dispute between Bedouin and Druze residents quickly escalated into widespread sectarian violence. 

What began midday on Wednesday with a protest at the fence soon turned into a flood of people passing through a gate into Syrian territory. Despite Israeli authorities’ knowledge of the protest, there were no police stationed in the area at all; the small number of Israeli soldiers and Border Police officers who were present offered little by way of resistance, firing a few rounds of tear gas before effectively giving up and allowing people to cross.

For several hours into Wednesday evening, Druze from Israel streamed into Syria. But rather than trying to reach Suwayda, which is located some 80 kilometers from the border fence, many instead took advantage of the unprecedented breach to reunite with relatives in nearby towns from whom they had long been separated — often for decades. In particular, the village of Hader saw many emotional reunions, with locals ferrying visitors across the 6 kilometers from the border in vans and pickup trucks.

But the traffic wasn’t only one-way. The breach also allowed Druze from Syria to cross freely into Israel, as Hassoun’s brother did on Wednesday. “I couldn’t believe I was really seeing him,” Hassoun told +972 after bidding him and other relatives farewell the following day as they returned to Syria. She was holding food and other gifts the family had brought with them. “It was hard being apart for so long.” 

When Israel occupied the Golan Heights (known in Arabic as the Jawlan) from Syria in the 1967 War, and then formally annexed it 14 years later, the new militarized border split apart thousands of Druze families. Travel between the two countries was heavily restricted, although it remained possible to obtain permission to visit for weddings or university studies. Some family visits were also able to take place under the auspices of the Red Cross. But that all ceased with the onset of the Syrian Civil War in 2011.

The fall of the Assad regime last year sparked hope among Druze in Israel that the situation might change for the better. Since then, however, Israel has expanded its control several miles further into Syrian territory, and this week unleashed new airstrikes on Damascus and Suwayda — a move it claims was carried out in order to protect Druze in Syria.

By Friday, southern Syria appeared poised for even greater violence, after armed Druze factions killed dozens of Bedouins in Suwayda following the withdrawal of Syrian regime forces from the city on Wednesday night. More than 1,000 Bedouin families were reportedly displaced during the clashes, and Bedouin tribes across the province have now amassed to launch a counteroffensive, as the Syrian government scrambles to try to regain control.

But on Wednesday, Druze on both sides of the border fence received a small glimpse of what could be. A father and son who were returning from Hader to Israel around sunset gleefully showed me photos of a meal their relatives in the village had prepared for them. “They didn’t have much, but they made do with what they had,” the father said, carrying bags full of Syrian groceries back to Israel.

‘It gives us hope to see our loved ones’

It was not until late into Wednesday night that a large number of police arrived and began closing the gate. On Thursday morning, the army erected barbed wire fences and placed a concrete wall along the border, with hundreds of police also present. For the rest of the day, the army coordinated the return of Druze who had crossed in both directions, shepherding them back to their homes after taking down their details.

Relatives who had not crossed during Wednesday’s protest also arrived at the border fence on Thursday  to try to reach their family members in Hader, but were denied by the army. “I’m originally from Hader, I live in Majdal Shams, and I haven’t seen my family, who are so close, for 45 years,” said Samira Yassouf, 62. “I want to see them. Until now it was a complicated time, so they didn’t allow us, but now it’s possible. I have cancer. I want to meet them before something happens to me.

“I was happy that the border opened,” she continued. “I hope there will be peace, and the border will always be open, and people can go and return without problems.”

“The feeling is unbelievable. For 45 years people haven’t met, only through WhatsApp,” said Issam Hassoun, 56, who came from Hader to cross the fence and meet his brother Samih. Samih, the brother who lives in Majdal, said it was the first time he was able to host Issam. “They entered with dignity and left with dignity,” he noted.

On Thursday, Rami Abu Faiz spoke to +972 as he made his way back to Hader after visiting the Israeli side with his family, including his young daughters. “I haven’t been here in 40 years. We came to visit the family. We’ve been here since yesterday. For the kids, it’s their first time here.”

When the Assad regime fell last December, many in Majdal Shams celebrated, but others feared for the future of the Druze in Syria, who had long been loyal to the regime. “If there are problems with our people there, we’ll see scenes like this again,” noted Dr. Salami Safadi, a lawyer and resident of Mas’ade in the Golan, referring to the killing of Druze in Suwayda earlier this week. 

About Wednesday’s protests along the border fence, he argued, “This is a pressure tactic: It has results, both the pressure from Druze there [inside Syria] and here. What’s most important is that the people of Suwayda stop being massacred, and Israel has the military and economic tools to stop it.”

But others in the Golan expressed their opposition to Israel’s attacks inside Syria. For Malham Abu Saleh, a resident of Majdal Shams and graduate of both the Hebrew University and Damascus University, “This Israeli intervention is a manipulation — to drive a wedge between the Druze and the rest of the Syrian people, the Sunnis. It’s clear they want them to keep clashing; this is an Israeli interest.

“You expect us to believe [Israel is] protecting the Druze?” she continued. “I’m sorry there are many people in our community who believe these things. [They] support Israeli intervention, in my opinion, for emotional reasons: when you feel your society is under pressure and oppression, you call for help from outside, [and] you don’t think who will help you.”

Despite these divisions, however, there is widespread agreement among the Druze in the Jawlan that the joy and freedom of movement thousands experienced this week should be the norm, not the exception. “There is no home or family here that remained [in the Israeli-occupied Golan] that doesn’t have relatives on the other side,” Abu Saleh explained. “If the government, no matter which one, ‘really cares’ about the Druze, then at least on the humanitarian level, there should be regular meetings with relatives.”

Dr. Safadi agreed. “In the end, people [this week] came and went, visiting one another. Nothing happened, everything’s fine — we’re not a large community,” he said. “It gives us hope to see our loved ones.”