Syria Today | Golan apples arrive in Syria

Golan apples arrive in Syria

Syrian farmers living in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights resumed the exportation of apples to Syria on February 17, after Israel halted the annual project last year.

Israel authorised the farmers to start exporting apples to Syria again following pressure by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).

In the coming weeks, more than 20 trucks of apples will be exported to Syria via the Quneitra crossing. Roughly 8,000 tonnes, nearly 20 percent of the entire annual apple crop farmed by Syrians in the Golan, will pass through the ceasefire lines. This is the fourth time the ICRC has organised such an operation.

“An apple transfer through the demarcation line between the occupied Golan and Syria proper is no everyday event,” the ICRC said in a statement. “The ICRC is acting in its capacity as a neutral intermediary at the request of the farmers of the occupied Golan and with the approval of the Syrian and Israeli authorities.”

The exports will be carried out under the watchful eye of the UN peacekeeping force that polices the ceasefire line between Israel and Syria. Apple production is a main source of income for Syrian farmers in the Golan, which Israel occupied in the 1967 Six-Day War and annexed in 1981 in a move never recognised by the international community.

“This is humanitarian aid extended by the Syrians to the people of the Golan Heights,” one apple farmer said. “The Syrians are helping us market apples so that the price does not drop too low.”

Roughly 18,000 Syrians, mostly Druze, live in the occupied Golan from an original population of 150,000. The strategic plateau is now also home to nearly 20,000 Jewish settlers.