18 Facts About Quneitra

Quneitra is the largely destroyed and abandoned capital of the Quneitra Governorate in south-western Syria.

Quneitra was founded in the Ottoman era as a way station on the caravan route to Damascus and subsequently became a garrison town of some 20, 000 people.

Between 2014 and July 2018, Quneitra was de facto controlled by the Southern Front, a Syrian rebel alliance.

Quneitra means small arch or bridge, and the name is derived from the small-arches bridge around which the town has been built.

Quneitra is the capital of the Quneitra Governorate, a district of southwestern Syria that incorporates the whole of the Golan Heights.

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The city of Quneitra is within the portion of the Golan Heights controlled by Syria.

Quneitra is situated in a high valley in the Golan Heights at an altitude of 942 metres above sea level.

Quneitra has been the destination for many internally displaced persons from neighbouring Daraa and Rif Dimashq governorates.

The Circassians of Quneitra engaged in sustained conflicts with the Druze and the Al Fadl through the remainder of the 19th century.

Quneitra saw several battles during the Syria-Lebanon Campaign of the Second World War, including the Battle of Damascus and Battle of Kissoue.

In June 1967, Time magazine wrote that: "The city of El Quneitra was a ghost town, its shops shuttered, its deserted streets patrolled by Israelis on house-to-house searches for caches of arms and ammunition.

Quneitra concluded that "responsibility for this extensive looting of the town of Quneitra lay to a great extent with the Israeli forces.

The surrender of Quneitra was controversial, with Israeli settlers and the Likud and National Religious Party opposing it.

The leader of Merom Golan, Yehuda Harel, and another Merom Golan member, Shimshon Wollner, initiated the destruction of Quneitra, which was carried out by the Land Development Administration of the Jewish National Fund.

Quneitra thought he was signing about what not to destroy but he was actually writing to destroy.

Quneitra's report was broadcast on ITN's News at Ten programme.

Quneitra's report concluded that Israeli forces had deliberately destroyed the city prior to their withdrawal, including almost 4, 000 buildings and a large amount of infrastructure, of value estimated at 463 million Syrian pounds.

The Rough Guide to Syria describes the appearance of the city in 2001: "The first sight of the flattened houses on Quneitra's outskirts is the most dramatic; many of the unscathed roofs simply lie on top of a mass of rubble, leaving the impression of a building that has imploded.