The Golan Heights viewed from what is left of the Tel Dan Post Outlook:

A pencil was responsible for the “Water War” between Syria and Israel that took place here…

The British wanted the border line between the British Mandate area of Eretz Israel and the French Mandate area of Syria and Lebanon to reflect the Biblical verse, “from Dan to Beersheva”. This line, very slightly north of the Tel Dan Post, was drawn in 1923 and marked on the map with a pencil. Both sides claimed sovereignty over the area covered by the pencil line, which represented 130 meters of land, including En Dan.

En Dan, which I have discussed previously, is one of the most profuse springs in the Middle East.

In 1964, Syria used the thickness of the pencil line as grounds to claim the right to draw water from En Dan and the Dan River. The Syrians built a post in the village of Nohila (400 meters across from the Tel Dan post) and stationed tanks there.

Nohila once stood where those trees in the distance are:

In response, the Israel Defense Forces paved the patrol road (which passes a few meters below where the picture above was taken) and blocked Syrian access to the Dan water system.

Below is a picture of the patrol road (taken from where the Tel Dan Post stood) with the town of Ghajar in the distance:

The conflict intensified and indiscriminate firing became a daily event.

The most serious incident began on November 13, 1964 when the Syrians shelled nearby Kibbutz Dan. The Israeli Army army reacted forcefully, bringing in its armored forces, artillery and air force, and silenced the Syrian cannons and stilled the excavation equipment. Israel was thus successful in preventing the sources of the Jordan River from being diverted.

The remains of a trench at the Tel Dan Post:

The abandoned command bunker at the Tel Dan Post:

A closer view of Ghajar and the patrol road… Ghajar is right on the border with Lebanon and it, and the surrounding area, are frequently host to clashes between Hezbollah and the IDF:

A bulldozer near the Tel Dan Post Outlook destroyed during the “Water War”:

Illustrative of the militarization of the Golan Heights, just a few hundred meters away from the Tel Dan Post Outlook I discovered another set of fortifications – this one further along in the process of being consumed by nature…

It doesn’t take long to notice though that there are numerous trenches cutting through the area:

And this formation pictured below, which at first glance appeared innocuous to me, turned out to be a bunker:

The trench leading into the bunker pictured above: