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One of three trucks, loaded with apples from the Golan Heights, arrives on the Syrian side of the border Sunday. (AP)
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| By Israel Insider staff and partners March 20, 2006 |
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Truckloads of apples produced by Arab farmers in the Israeli Golan Heights began arriving in Syria on Sunday as part of a government drive to help the farmers to market their main crop.
Three trucks with Swiss license plates and carrying Red Cross flags brought the apples across the border, and the crop was then transferred to Syrian trucks for a two-hour drive to Damascus, 67 kilometers (42 miles) to the north, witnesses in the city of Quneitra on the Syrian side of the border said.
The deal was worked through the International Committee of the Red Cross and carried out under the supervision of U.N. Disengagement Observers Forces, which polices the cease-fire line between Syria and Israel.
In Jerusalem, Mark Regev, spokesman for the Israeli Foreign Ministry, said the Druse farmers of the Golan asked the ministry for permission to export the apples to Syria.
"No one on the Israeli side wants to see apples rotting and farmers work going to waste," he said.
Red Cross media officer and legal adviser Rana Madfei told The Associated Press in Damascus by telephone that the trucks crossed into Syria "easily and without any incident."
She said trucks would bring 100-150 tons of apples daily to Syria, six days weekly and for two month, with the total shipments expected to reach 4,000 tons.
The move is the second of its kind between Syria and Israel since Israel captured the heights in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. Al-Baath newspaper of the ruling Baath party, said that "it is a national mission to express solidarity with our relatives holding out in the occupied Syrian Golan after Israel's rejection to market their apple output."
Last year, Syria imported some 10,000 tons of apples from the Golan province, saying it is ready to receive any quantities of apples and re-export some of them, since the "apples were planted by Syrians on Syrian lands."
Syria itself is a large apple producer. It was not clear whether the latest apple shipments would be marketed locally or re-exported. Oil-rich Arab countries are a major market for Syrian agricultural products.
Medhat Saleh, a former member of the Syrian parliament, said Israel offers to buy the apples "at very low prices," and prevents the farmers from exporting them through Israeli territory.
Syria and Israel are archenemies. Israel annexed the Golan plateau in 1981, offering Israeli citizenship to its 25,000 residents, who mostly belong to the Druse sect, an offshoot of Islam. But most Druse did not take the offer.
Hundreds of Druse students also come through the Quneitra crossing annually to study at Damascus University then go back. Marriages of members of the sect are also arranged between brides and grooms living on opposite sides of the border, and on religious holidays, families greet each other along barbed wire fences, but they are not allowed to meet directly.
AP contributed to this report.
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