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The Golan Heights

The Golan Heights

Golan Heights travel guide

The Golan is one of the least visited and known regions of Israel. This Web Guide seeks to help you discover the secrets of this beautiful and serene landscape, whose hills and cliff faces are replete with natural and historical sites.

For the nature lover the Golan has much to offer. Here, in this untamed land, flora and fauna from different habitats come together in a unique and natural setting.

Here you’ll find wolves and gazelles, squirrels and coneys and much, much more.

For the history buff, the Golan is a region of endless fascination ‘ Prehistoric sites and megalithic edifices, whose purpose remains a mystery, are dotted through the hills and valleys; Hellenistic towns, Roman fortresses and Crusader castles stand guard over the roads and ancient highways of the Golan.

For the pilgrim the Golan is the place where Jesus sought his last moments of peace before embarking on his final journey to Jerusalem. Three of the disciples were born on the Golan, the miracle of the Gadarene Swine took place here as did the healing of the blind man, the second miracle of the loaves and the fishes and the transfiguration. It was here, too, that Jesus bestowed on Peter the stewardship of the kingdom of God.

Over the past few years a range of attractive accommodations have opened on the Golan, from rustic bed and breakfast facilities to exclusive guesthouses and hotels. Hiking trails, parks, picnic sites and cycle paths await the visitor, affording a range of exciting touring possibilities

We very much hope that this guide will help you plan and enjoy your trip to the Golan and look forward to hosting you here.

https://www.inisrael.com/golan/index.html

Nimrod Fortress: A Historic Castle with Stunning Views in the Golan Heights

Nimrod Fortress: A Historic Castle with Stunning Views in the Golan Heights

Nimrod Fortress, also known as Nimrod Castle, is a castle built by the Ayyubids and expanded by the Mamluks to guard a major access route to Damascus against armies from the west. It is located on the southern slopes of Mount Hermon, overlooking the Golan Heights. The fortress was first built in the Hellenistic or Byzantine period and was rebuilt around 1228 by Al-Aziz Uthman. It was further expanded by Sultan Baibars and given to his second-in-command, Bilik. After the Muslim conquest of Acre, the fortress lost its strategic value and fell into disrepair. The Ottoman Turks later used it as a luxury prison for Ottoman nobles. The fortress is currently managed by the Israel Nature and Parks Authority and is open to the public. Visitors can explore the excavated and restored portions of the fortress, including secret corridors, loopholes, and the remains of a keep surrounded by large rectangular towers. One day tour idea for the region could be visiting Nimrod Fortress and exploring the surrounding area. The tour could start with a visit to the fortress, where visitors can learn about its history and architecture and enjoy panoramic views of the Golan Heights. After exploring the fortress, the tour could continue to nearby Banias Nature Reserve, which offers hiking trails, waterfalls, and natural pools. Visitors can hike along the river, explore the ancient ruins of Banias, and enjoy a picnic lunch in the beautiful surroundings. The tour could also include a visit to the nearby Druze village of Majdal Shams, where visitors can learn about Druze culture and enjoy traditional Druze cuisine. Overall, this day tour offers a combination of history, nature, and culture, making it a great way to experience the region.

A Brief History of the Golan

A Brief History of the Golan

The Golan's first human inhabitants arrived on the plateau some half a million years ago, probably having migrated from Africa along the Syrian-African rift. These early people of the Golan hunted the animals that lived in the vast swamplands and lakes along the rift. In the Late Stone Age, as man began perfecting his ability to fashion tools. groups of people settled In the areas of the Golan that were rich in flint- the raw material fer tools. The dawn of history on the Golan dates back about 8,000 years, to the Chalcolithic period. For 3,000 years of that epoch, a distinct culture of graziers and farmersInscribed its mark on the plateau and its cliff edges. The remains of grain storage facilities, seeds, olive pits, and lentils in its settlements attest to man's first major revolution-the development of agriculture. With it Came manent communities. houses, villages, towns, and urban organization. But the farmers and graziers of the Golan were overcome, about 5,000 years ago, by a wave of nomads that overran the Golan. Their legacy is comprised of hundreds of table like graves dotting the open spaces of the Golan, several massively fortified corrpounds erected on the most invulnerable points of the Golan's steep mountain ridges, and a few enigmas like the Rujum-el-Hiri and compound, a complex of huge circular concentric stone fences with openings at certain points and stone markers at others. The Rujum-el-Hiri and other "Phantom circles" like it have been identified as everything from astronomical observation platforms to religious edifices and alien contact Points. Whatever they were, those who constructed them, the denizens of the Golan in the Bronze Age. vanished about 3,200 yeas ago. Once the new realms of the area were founded, the Israelite kingdom to the west and the various Aramaean kingdoms to the east, the Golan served as a buffer zone between these warring rivals. Sparsely populated, the plateau was the site of repeated battles between the Israelites and their adversaries. It was during this period that one of the cities of refuge in the territory of the people of Israel was established on the Golan-and called Golan. When the eastern Mediterranean and adjacent inland areas were unified as part of the empire of Alexander the Great, the Golan was finally settled in earnest. From the fourth century BCE, numerous villages with small fortified structures next to them were erected all over the Golan. By the time Alexander's heirs were celebrating their inheritance, large towns were coming into being, and the subsequent Jewish commonwealth of the maccabees had reason to consider the Golan a worthy political objective, The large Jewish population of the area, together with the Jewish population of the cities east of the Jordan, made the Golan a prime target of annexation to the Jewish state. Meanwhile, in the environs of Mount Hermon and the northern Golan, a nomadic tribe of Arabs known as the Itureans was developing a unique mountain culture. When the Romans conquered the area, putting an end to the feuding remnants of Alexander's empire and the Jewish commonwealth, settlement and construction on the Golan boomed. Cities like Banias (Caesarea Philippi), Gamla, Hippos, Gadara, Seleucia, and Sogane became centers of GrecoRoman culture. By the time of Jesus, the Jews of the Golan were a significant fome in the area of his ministry in the Galilee. Jesus fled Herod Antipas, ruler of the Galilee, to the Golan. Here in the Jewish villages around Caesarea Pfiilippi and the southern Golan he spent his last days before making his fateful final journey to Jerusalem. The widespread messianic fervor of the first century, animosity between Jews and Gentiles, and the hardships of Roman taxation together with economic shifts finally ignited into the Great Revolt of the Jews against the Romans. Gamla, Seleucia, and Sogane fortified themselves against the Romans. At Gamla the defenders put up a heroic fight against the besieging Roman legions, but when the lack of a cohesive Jewish force brought about their inevitable defeat, the city's inhabitants climbed to the rock spur at the summit of their town and flung them selves down, en masse, into the ravine below. Gamla was a hotbed of the Jewish resistance movement: its defenders had resolved that they could not live with enslavement to the Romans. When the Roman Empire became Byzantine, and the state religion Christianity, the Golan, together with the rest of the eastern Mediterranean, flourished. New towns and villages, churches and synagogues, were built, decorated, and then redecorated as the times and the styles changed. It was a time of prosperity for all. In 636 the Arab armies of the new religion of Islam defeated the Byzantine frontier troops. After the conquest, the boundaries between nomad and settler dissolved as the desert once again overran the sown land. In 636, the Arabs vanquished the Byzantine army at the critical battle of Yarmuk at Yakuza in the southern Golan, and the entire region-all the way to northern Syria-fell into Muslim hands. Gradually, in the absence of the unifying hand of the Byzantine empire, the local economy disintegrated. The center of the Muslim world gravitated over time to Egypt, Damascus, and then Baghdad, abandoning the areas in between to neglect. The Golan once again became the pasture lands of nomads and the arena of marauding Bedouin tribes. When the Crusaders conquered the Land of Israel, the Golan became the border territory between them and the Muslim emirate of Damascus, The area soon deteriorated into a no-man's-land, Crusader and Muslim raiding expeditions attacking its Bedouins and farmers at random. Both Muslims and Crusaders erected fortified positions, castles, and towns along the Golan, which Passed with every change of fortune from one side to the other, Banias, located on a strategic leg of the road from Tyre to Damascus, was considered the key to the Holy Land by the Crusaders. Above it, the immense Nimrod's Fortress became theheadquarters of the secretive sect of the Hashishiya, members of which were for hire to carry out the political murders of Crusader and Muslim leaders. The feared sect's legacy to the West is the word "assassin." Once the Crusaders were vanquished, the Golan again became a backwater; this time of the Mameluke empire. New construction was confined to a few khans (caravansaries) built along the dusty roads connecting Damascus to Egypt or leading to the port of Acre. With the fall of the Mameluke empire to the Ottomans in 1516, the Golan was rendered even more remote from the centers of power. During this time, its sparse population was mainly Bedouin. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Druze from Lebanon and Syria and Alawites from Lebanon began to penetrate the plateau, and permanent settlements reemerged in the nineteenth century when security conditions in the area began to improve, Towards the end of the nineteenth century, Circassians, refugees from Bosnia and the surrounding lands who were evicted by the Christian forces, were settled in the Golan by the Ottoman authorities. Arabs from North Africa also attempted to settle in the area together with Jews from the Galilee, who built a few Jewish agricultural villages. With the fall of the Ottoman empire after the First World War and the Sykes-Picot Treaty, the Golan was divided between the British and the French, the formerapportioned a mandate over the Land of Israel (then-British Palestine, which included Jordan) and the latter allocated Syria and Lebanon as their piece of the Middle East pie. The borders between the British and French mandates on the Golan that were drawn up in the twenties left a number of areas vaguely undecided. For the Bedouin tribes whose daily lives straddled the new border and whose goats grazed indifferently on both sides, the exact border was a moot point. The creation of Syria in 1946 signaled the end of the French mandate, and when the British finally left Palestine in 1948, the Syrians invaded the entire Golan. After an unsuccessful attempt in conjunction with six other Arab states to destroy Israel at the moment of its inception, the Syrians transformed the Golan into a fortified border area-a military zone from which to launch a second round of offensives against Israel complete with heavy fortifications, bunkers, and military camps, Towns and villages for the families of military personnel were also erected. Periodically, the Syrians, sitting in their fortified positions above the Israeli settlements in the Hula and Jordan valleys, shelled the Israeli villages below. In 1965 the Syrians attempted to divert the sources of the Jordan River through the Golan so that they would not flow into Israeli territory. Artillery skirmishes and military attacks broke out time and again between the Israelis and the Syrians. In 1967, Syria, Egypt and Jordan launched another attack on Israel. After a six day battle, the Arab armies were beaten back by the Israelis, who also conquered the staging areas of their attackers. Among them was the Golan. The Syrian villagers of the Golan fled with their retreating army and only the villagers of the four Druze villages on Mount Hermon remained in their homes. After resolving never to negotiate with Israel and declaring the resolution to an international audience, the Arabs try to annihilate Israel Israel once again in 1973, but are routed This time, the Israelis, advanced eastwards to take areas of Syria east of the Golan. Following their losses, and in view of the fact that Israeli forces were now within artillery range from Damascus, the Syrians were compelled to negotiate a disengagement agreement with Israel via American mediation. following the agreement, the Israeli army retreated from the areas conquered In 1973 and additional areas of the Golan. Military forces on both sides were regulated, leaving a minimal number of troops and tanks, and a UN observer force set in place Since then, for the last quarter century, the Golan has been at peace. https://www.inisrael.com/golan/history.htm

The Panda Resort & Spa is situated in Moshav Neve Ativ, at the foot of Mount Hermon

The Panda Resort & Spa is situated in Moshav Neve Ativ, at the foot of Mount Hermon

The Panda Resort & Spa is situated at the foot of Mount Hermon - Moshav Neve Ativ. Neve Ativ is a seat at the northernmost end of Israel and belongs to the Golan Regional Council. Neve Ativ was established in 1968 by the fighters of the Nut Patrol. About 150 residents live in the settlement and the nature of the community is secular. Over the years, it became a worker's seat of the Agricultural Union movement. The area is surrounded by green mountains and blooming fields, and the winding roads to the settlement infuse its residents with a pastoral and picturesque atmosphere. In Neve Ativ we celebrate the holidays together, memorial day gatherings, nature walks, lectures and shows for children. In Moshav you can find community services such as a pool and a synagogue. Imagining your vacation in a beautiful wooden cabin at the foot of Mount Hermon would be wonderful. With a refreshing cup of coffee or herbal infusion picked fresh from the garden, you wake up each morning to the sound of birds chirping in the trees, the wonderful silence, the mountain air and a view of breathtaking nature. Here in the heart of a quiet and pastoral nature reserve, it's a vacation unlike any other: the Neve Ativ Resort and Spa Hotel from the Panda Hotel chain. There are 40 dunams of forest and wild nature at the resort, a perfect mix of luxury and peace for guests who want a quiet and peaceful vacation in a perfect location in the country's north. After the re-establishment of the hotel, the hotel team, headed by the hotel's CEO, works to provide you with the hospitality experience and service down to the smallest details. In addition to outdoor parking, there is 24-hour reception service, daily room service, and an outdoor swimming pool complex which is exclusively available to hotel guests. Neve Ativ Resort and Spa Hotel from the Panda Hotel chain offers couples and families a variety of seasonal packages. Winter guests can enjoy a wonderful ski vacation, while summer visitors can enjoy wild spaces with nature corners, green carpets of grass, and mountain views that will make them feel like they are in Switzerland.

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