Israel consolidates grip on Golan under cover of Syria’s chaos

‘“Listen,” Salman Fakherldeen said. “Do you hear?”
Below the drone of a farmer’s tractor, the distant clatter of automatic gunfire steadily increased in volume and intensity.
Fakherldeen is an activist in the Israeli-occupied Syrian Golan Heights and a researcher with the Golan-based human rights center al-Marsad. Martial beret screwed down over his head, he paused for thought as he smoked a cigarette, watching shells explode on the Syrian plains beyond the demilitarized zone.
“The only winners now are [Bashar] Assad and the Israelis,” he said. “And in the end, Assad will lose as well.”’
Read more: Israel consolidates grip on Golan under cover of Syria’s chaos