A UN vehicle crosses the Quneitra border crossing on the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, on Oct. 15, 2018. The Quneitra border crossing between Israel and Syria was reopened on Monday after it was closed for more than four years because of the civil war in Syria, according to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). (Xinhua/JINI/Ayal Margolin)
DAMASCUS, Oct. 15 (Xinhua) -- The border crossing between Syria's southern province of Quneitra and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights officially reopened Monday, state TV reported.
The Syrian flag has also been hoisted on the crossing amid the presence of Syrian police and local delegations from Quneitra.
The United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) has also returned to the disengagement zone after leaving it in 2014, as the separation line between the Bravo gate on the Syrian side and the Alpha gate on the Israeli side is an activity zone for the UNDOF.
The Quneitra crossing was the only crossing for the Syrians in the Israel-occupied Golan Heights to enter Syria but not for the Syrians inside Syria as they are not allowed to enter the Israeli-occupied territory.
Syrian students from Golan Heights had used this crossing ahead of the Syrian crisis to study in Syria as the government has provided them with exceptional facilitations to seek education in their motherland.
Also, marriages had taken place between Syrians in Golan and Quneitra in the past.
There had been instances ahead of the Syrian war when apples harvested in Golan would be sold inside Syria through the crossing.
As the crossing has been officially reopened, Golan students are expected to visit Syria through Quneitra after they had gone through long trips through Jordan to come to Syria by airplanes.
The UNDOF forces were first deployed between Syria and the Golan Heights in 1974 to separate Syrian and Israeli forces after Israel occupied the Golan Heights during the 1967 war.
The UNDOF halted its operations in southern Syria in 2014 after the ultra-radical groups abducted UN peacekeepers in that area.
The rebels withdrew from Quneitra in July of this year after the Russians reached a deal with the Israeli side for restoring the situation in Quneitra to the pre-Syrian wartime and reviving the treaty of 1974 that ended the Yom Kippur war and designated the lines of separation between Israel and Syria.
