The clashes quickly intensified and spilled into the UN-supervised neutral demilitarized zone between Syrian controlled territory and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

The fighting came to international attention when in March 2013, Syrian rebels took hostage 21 Filipino UN personnel, who had been a part of the UN Disengagement Observer Force in the neutral buffer zone between Syria and Israel.

[20] According to UN official they were taken hostage near Observation Post 58, which had sustained damage and was evacuated the previous weekend, following heavy combat in close proximity at Al Jamla.

The borders of the Governorate were extended during the 1948 War with Israel, as Syria occupied parts of the Jordan and Huleh Valleys, adjacent to the Sea of Galilee.

During the Six-Day War in 1967, Israel captured the Western Golan Heights from Syria, effectively reduced Syrian-controlled Quneitra part to one third of its size.

After a failed attempt to recapture the region in the Yom Kippur War of 1973, Syria and Israel have remained in a shaky truce with a United Nations-monitored demilitarized zone (DMZ) separating the countries.

Additionally, Israeli soldiers were injured when protesters attempted to cross into the Druze town of Majdal Shams located on the Israeli-occupied side of the ceasefire line.

Public support for the Syrian government nevertheless remains high, while rumours of pro-Assad spies intimidate potential dissenters fearful of being banned from cross-border trade.

A rebel offensive in May 2014 to capture the town of Qahtaniya and the Riwadi and Hamidyya checkpoints involved the Syrian Revolutionaries Front (SRF), Saraya al-Jihad, Bait al-Maqdis Group, Ahl Assalaf Youth, Jund al-Rahman Brigades and Mujahideen al-Sham Movement.

In August 2014, it was reported that Jabhat al-Nusra, along with Fallujah-Houran Brigade, Syria Revolutionaries Front, Saraya al-Jihad, Bayt al-Maqdis and Ahrar al-Sham, began a battle called "the real promise" to seize control of the devastated city of Quneitra and the crossing connecting it with the Golan Heights.

On 2 November 2012, Syrian Army tanks crossed into the UN-administered demilitarized zone and clashed with rebels near the village of Beer Ajam.

Israel responded on 5 November by filing a complaint with the United Nations Security Council, claiming Syria violated the 1974 Agreement on Disengagement[29] signed following the Yom Kippur War.

Sources within the Israeli military cite these restrictions as a potential reason why the armed opposition drew the Syrian Army into combat in the area.

[31] The following day, Israeli defense minister Ehud Barak claimed that rebels were in control of most of the villages on the eastern slopes of the Golan Heights, and that the Syrian Army had been unable to enter them.

[citation needed] On 24 March, the IDF fired a guided missile at a Syrian machine gun nest after Israeli troops were shot at twice in the Golan Heights.

An Austrian defense ministry official confirmed to the Associated Press that rebel troops captured the crossing point and that UN forces have withdrawn from the area.

[41] On 18 February, the Army launched a surprise offensive during the morning using tanks and air strikes against the villages of al-Hajjeh, al-Dawayeh al-Kubra, al-Sughra, Bir Ajam and al-Buraika in the central and southern parts of al-Quneitra.

[58] On 23 June, the IDF launched several airstrikes targeting government troops in retaliation for an attack the day before that killed an Israeli teenager from the Arab village of Arraba.

[72] However, the Fair Observer site, while noting that the Revolutionary Guards are administratively embedded in the most critical Syrian government agencies reflecting a commissar-type pattern, states their "battle management strategy in Syria appears to be premised on a light Iranian footprint on the ground and the use of proxy militias as force multipliers to manage the battle space.

Rather, they aimed to make Quneitra the seat of their forward command and bring Iranian Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) within sight and firing range of Israeli military forces.

At a 7 May 2013 meeting with Iranian foreign minister Ali Akbar Salehi, Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad announced, "The Golan will become a front of resistance.

"[citation needed] Tel al-Hara, at 3500 feet the tallest peak in the Golan range, and overlooking Israel's outposts, is important because it was formerly a Syrian fortress with tens of square kilometers of bunkers, funnels and defensive positions.

Hezbollah's strategy could also be termed defensive in that they fear the possibility that Israel will close in on it from Mount Dov to the west, using the Al-Nusra Front and moderate opposition forces to lay siege to southern Lebanon, thus causing difficulties for the organization's activities there.

In addition, and perhaps more importantly, Hezbollah and Assad fear that Israel is carving out a path to Damascus via Quneitra and Daraa — one that will allow it easy access to the Syrian capital in the event of war.

With the breakdown of the status quo on the Golan Heights front, which had been quiet since the Separation of Forces Agreement of 1974, Israel's eyes have been anxiously focused on developments in Quneitra.

Amos Yadlin, a former senior Israeli intelligence officer and now a member of the opposition Zionist Union party, told the Wall Street Journal: "There is no doubt that Hezbollah and Iran are the major threat to Israel, much more than the radical Sunni Islamists, who are also an enemy.

"[79] A prominent Middle East researcher stated that Israel established contacts with members of the Syrian opposition abroad during the second half of 2012 and the idea of a buffer zone emerged during secret meetings in Amman in early 2013.

[80] Importantly, Israel explicitly threatened to fire on any Syrian government armour which enters the demilitarized zone in Quneitra, which would be a breach of the May 1974 disengagement agreement between the two countries.

[82] At least 220 rebels killed: Claims by Hezbollah and the Iranian News agency FARS No significant events took place on either date and neither figure is confirmed by any credible verifiable source.