Chikli: Israel Must Use Assad’s Collapse to Conquer Mt. Hermon Summit

Photo Credit: Doron Horowitz/FLASH90

Mount Hermon.

“Despite the rebranding of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham and its leader Ahmed al-Shara, the bottom line is that most of Syria is now under the control of affiliate organizations of al-Qaeda and ISIS,” Minister of Diaspora Affairs Amichai Chikli (Likud) tweeted Sunday morning.

“Israel must urgently renew its control over the peak of Mount Hermon and establish a new defense line based on the 1974 ceasefire line. Jihadists must not be allowed to establish themselves near our communities,” Chikli added.

MK Zvi Sukkot (Religious Zionism) tweeted that “the State of Israel must seize a security strip against the new jihadist regime in Syria that will include the Syrian Mount Hermon and a significant area close to the border.” Sukkot stressed that the political and military cost of his proposed maneuver was probably lower than ever, and the security benefits would be enormous.

Mount Hermon in 1972. / The Zionist Archive

HERMON SUMMIT HISTORY

Two days after the Six-Day War ended, on June 12, 1967, when there was no Syrian presence there, an airborne infantry force captured without a fight a small part of the Hermon Ridge (about 7% of the entire ridge) that is today called the Mount Hermon Preserve. A reconnaissance force from the 3rd Brigade reached the peak of Hermon and raised a flag, but the IDF did not hold the place and the peak remained in the territory of Syria and Lebanon.

After the war, the IDF established an observation post and several residential huts on one of the peaks that were in its territory. Within about two years, with the completion of the road from Majdal Shams, the place became Post 102 and was intended to be used mainly by Unit 848 (now known as Unit 8200), the Air Force’s control system, and the Signal Corps.

During the Yom Kippur War in 1973, the outpost was captured by the Syrians in a battle that began in the first moments of the war and ended the next day in the early morning hours. After an aerial bombardment and artillery shelling, four helicopters landed a blocking force from the 82nd Syrian Paratrooper Battalion to the west of the outpost, joined on foot by the rest of the 82nd Battalion that had come from “the Syrian Hermon.”

Some of the Syrian fighters stormed the outpost. There were 60 soldiers in the outpost at the time, of whom only 14 were from the Golani Brigade. When the attack began, some of the IDF soldiers who were at the post hid in the internal tunnels, with the Syrians controlling its upper area. On the night of October 6–7, 17 of the soldiers besieged at the post escaped through a rear entrance, but only 10 soldiers managed to reach the IDF lines safely. At the end of the battle, the IDF suffered 16 dead, 12 wounded, and 31 soldiers captured. After capturing the post, the Syrians reinforced their troops with another commando company and prepared to defend the ridges west of the Israeli Hermon post.

The IDF’s first attack to regain control of the Hermon outpost was on October 8, the third day of the war, and it failed. After about seven hours of bloody fighting, all the soldiers were forced to retreat. In this battle, the IDF suffered 23 dead and 55 wounded. The bodies of eight fallen soldiers remained in the battle area.

Winter on Mt. Hermon. / Moshe Milner / GPO

The second battle to capture the outpost was fought between October 21 and 22 and was called Operation Dessert. In heroic fighting, the forces, led by Golani soldiers, succeeded in capturing the Israeli outpost at a heavy cost of 56 dead and 79 wounded. In parallel with the capture of the “Israeli Hermon,” a battle was waged to capture additional parts of the Hermon range – the Syrian Hermon (2,381 meters) and the Pitulim outpost. The summit itself, the peak of Mt. Hermon, was captured without a fight. The fighting there, which was based mainly on reserve paratroopers who were dropped from helicopters, ended successfully and at a cost of two deaths for the IDF. In the end, the IDF held most of the area of ​​Mt. Hermon, including the peak. On October 24, the ceasefire came into effect.

On November 1, 1973, due to a snowstorm, the reserve paratrooper force that had captured the peak was ordered to evacuate on foot to the Pitulim outpost. In the months of March–May 1974, as the weather cleared, incidents in the Syrian enclave intensified to the point of a war of attrition. There were about a thousand incidents, mainly involving shelling.

The Syrians shelled the summit of Mount Hermon almost at all hours of the day. The physical conditions at the summit were extremely difficult. In view of the Syrians’ precise shelling of the forces in general and of the summit and the windings and axis between them in particular, the IDF estimated that a Syrian forward observation officer was in Israeli territory and directing the fire of the batteries with precision and efficiency. The fighting in the spring for the possession of Mount Hermon lasted from April 14 until the agreement to separate forces on May 31 – a month and a half packed with battles in difficult conditions.

On Tuesday afternoon, June 25, 1974, a ceremonial procession was held at the peak of Mount Hermon near the cave, at a site already called by the soldiers “Hazarmaveth,” meaning “Court of Death.” IDF soldiers were evacuated from the area and control of the area was transferred to UN forces.