The Invisible Census: How Israel Is Building a Shadow Government in Southern Syria

Later that month, farmers around al-Rafid, a town in southern Quneitra near the ceasefire line with the occupied Golan, received identification cards through UNDOF. Syria TV, which examined the cards, reported that they contained personal details, plot information and instructions on movement and safety during farm work.

When farmer Khaled Abdul Rahman al-Hassan presented his card to Israeli soldiers, they demanded proof of land ownership, checked his identity against Israeli “military records” and allowed him through only during designated daytime hours for a limited harvest period. A Syrian liaison said roughly 20 to 25 farmers in the locality held comparable documents.

The land remained theirs, but reaching it depended on Israeli permission, a divide between ownership and access that Palestinian farmers in the occupied Palestinian territories know all too well.

VIDEO: Farmers and herders in Quneitra describe how Israeli restrictions on access to farmland and grazing areas threaten their livelihoods. (Source: TRT World)

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In September 1967, Israel conducted a census that excluded absent Palestinians from the population register, with consequences for their residency rights, according to a submission published by the United Nations.

In the seam zone, the West Bank land between Israel’s separation barrier and the 1949 armistice line known as the Green Line, OCHA has documented a system requiring Palestinian farmers to obtain Israeli military permits to reach their land, with permits issued by category and for limited periods. Applicants must provide ownership or land-tax documents and satisfy additional security requirements. Evidence of ownership does not itself guarantee permission to enter.

Today, in southern Syria, that control extends far beyond the fields into residents’ homes, phones and family lives.