The Syrian army on Thursday hoisted the Syrian national flag over the crossing between the southern province of Quneitra and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, a well-informed source told Xinhua. The Syrian flag was raised over the Quneitra crossing, just tens of meters away from the Israeli forces in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, the source said on condition of anonymity. He added that the Syrians in the Golan Heights saw the Syrian soldiers. The Quneitra crossing is a border crossing through the purple ceasefire line into the area controlled by the UN Disengagement Observer Force between the Syrian-controlled and the Israeli-occupied parts of the Golan Heights. It is on the southwestern outskirts of Quneitra, and not far from Ein Zivan in the Golan Heights. The rebels captured it in 2014 from the Syrian army. Meanwhile, Syrian state news agency SANA said the army was deployed in Quneitra Thursday, after the end of militants presence. The declaration came a week after a deal was reached for the entry of the Syrian army into all rebel-held areas in Quneitra near the Golan Heights. According to the deal, the Syrian army should enter all of the areas that had been controlled by the government before 2011, the year of the Syrian war. The rebels surrendered their weapons, and those who rejected to reconcile with the government had evacuated to the rebel-held areas in northern Syria. This new deal came in light of the recent summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, who met in Helsinki, Finland last week. They discussed the situation in Syria, mainly in the southern region near the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. Putin highlighted the need to defeat terrorists in southwestern Syria while keeping the forces of Syria and Israel separated. He referred specifically to the treaty of 1974 that ended the Yom Kippur war and designated the lines of separation between Israel and Syria.
