Quneitra

Quneitra is the largely destroyed and abandoned capital of the Quneitra Governorate in south-western Syria, set in a high valley in the Golan Heights at 1,010 metres above sea level. Since 1974 it has stood inside the UN-patrolled buffer zone under Security Council Resolution 350 and the disengagement agreement between Israel and Syria. It was founded in the Ottoman era as a way station on the caravan route to Damascus and became a garrison town of some 20,000 people. It joined the independent Syrian Republic in 1946 and became capital of the new Quneitra Governorate in 1964. Israel took it on 10 June 1967 in the Six-Day War, Syria briefly recaptured it in 1973, and Israel almost completely destroyed it before withdrawing in June 1974. Syria later declined to rebuild it. Its population was estimated at 153 in 2004, with about 4,000 more in the surrounding area. During the Syrian Civil War control passed among rebel and government forces, and Israeli forces took it in December 2024.