evidence: When Iran recently attacked the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights from its positions in south-west Syria, Israel responded with a volley of air strikes that it says all but destroyed "almost all the Iranian infrastructure in Syria". It was a dramatic flare-up in a long-running enmity – and it was no coincidence that it happened over one of the most contested areas in the Middle East. [...] The Golan Heights is an area of 1,800km² on the border between Israel and Syria. Today it’s mostly occupied by Israel, but it was under Syrian sovereignty until June 1967, when Israel took control of most of the area in the Six-Day War, a military conflict with Egypt, Jordan and Syria. Although Israel controls only about two-thirds of what is known as the Golan Heights, it controls the most strategic points. [...] The Golan Heights’ high altitude provides it with observation points deep into Syria, with which Israel has never formally made peace. Israel has long wanted to reach bilateral political settlements with some of its Arab neighbours, and one of its strategies was to occupy territory and return it through negotiation. In the vernacular of Arab-Israeli relations, this is known as "land for peace".