evidence: The seven-hundred-square-mile Golan Heights overlooks Israel to its west, Lebanon to its north, Syria to its east, and Jordan to its south. During the 1967 Six Day War, Syrian forces on the Golan Heights shelled Israeli farms in the Hula Valley below, and Israeli forces captured the territory from them following the Israeli seizure of the Sinai Peninsula and Gaza Strip from Egypt and the West Bank and East Jerusalem from Jordan. [...] Civil war in Syria since 2011 has given the Golan Heights new strategic significance for Israel. As President Bashar al-Assad’s grasp on power appeared tenuous, he bound himself to Iran and Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shia movement, to ensure his regime’s survival. Fighting between rebel and regime-aligned forces brought Iran’s Quds Force, an elite paramilitary unit, and Hezbollah militants to the edge of the Golan Heights. As Assad has consolidated his control, Israelis now worry that Iran and its proxies could maintain a permanent foothold there. [...] Adherents of an offshoot of Ismaili Shiism, the Druze reside primarily in Lebanon and Syria. The Golan Heights Druze by and large remain attached to their Syrian nationality, but the civil war in Syria has disrupted their ties to their brethren in the country’s southwest. Like East Jerusalem Palestinians, Golan Heights Druze do not recognize Israeli annexation and so most have refused Israeli citizenship, maintaining status as permanent residents instead. This distinguishes them from Druze within Israel’s pre-1967 borders, who are the one minority that participates in Israel’s military draft.