Agreement on Disengagement between Israel and Syria

The Agreement on Disengagement[1] between Israel and Syria, which was signed on May 31, 1974,[2] provided for the continuation of the cease-fire already in effect and for the separation of opposing parties by a UN Peacekeeping Force.

The 400 square kilometres (150 sq mi) in that area contained many small Syrian villages as well as the volcanic cone and peak of Hermon mountain.

Israel demanded that a list of its captives held in Syria be released as a condition for re-opening the negotiations, and asked that they be allowed to receive medical treatment from the Red Cross if needed.

U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, came for a short shuttling journey between Jerusalem and Damascus in February 1974 (he later wrote in his memoirs that he had decided to mediate due to pressure from the Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and ruler of Saudi Arabia, who wished to bring both the Yom Kippur War and the oil crisis to an end).

Attrition warfare greatly increased in the coming months, and between March and May there were over a thousand different incidents, including heavy bombings on cities in the Golan as well as constant fire at Israel Defense Forces, and battles over the control of Mount Hermon.

In exchange, a 235 square kilometer (146 sq mi) United Nations Disengagement Observer Force Zone was formed on the Syrian side of that line.

[6] The agreement stated that the Syrian civilians forced to leave their homes in the buffer zone will be able to return to them, as it pledged fight terrorist activities in the Golan Heights.

After the fall of the Assad regime in December 2024, the IDF captured outposts on the Syrian-controlled sector of Mount Hermon, which had been a part of the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force buffer zone under the agreement.