Tel Faher

Tel Faher is one of the Syrian fortifications that was captured by the Israel Defense Forces in the Six Day War. A fierce battle for this hill was fought mainly by the Golani Brigade and at the entrance to the site is a monument bearing the names of the Golani fallen. The name was changed after 1967 to the Golani Look-Out Post.

The battle for the hill began when a reinforced IDF troop, the "Barak" regiment, came uphill from the west. They attacked the horseshoe-shaped post frontally. (Visitors enter through the eastern opening.) About 100 meters in front of the barbed wire fences, the troop carriers that had managed to make their way were stopped. Twenty-five soldiers who survived the lethal Syrian fire charged and split the post in two, some heading for the southern target and some for the northern one, beyond the gorge. There were three fences between the men attacking the southern target and the trenches. One of the soldiers lay across the barbed wire while his friends jumped over him into the trenches and the bunkers. In the advance, most of the soldiers either died or were wounded — only three soldiers remained uninjured after the battle. But finally the southern target was almost entirely in the IDF's hands. The northern target was even more difficult to attain. Of the thirteen soldiers on the first wave of attack, only one was alive and uninjured at the end of the battle. Reinforcements were sent to this section of the post.

The regiment commander, who charged with the group that cleared out the trenches, was hit and killed. Most of the senior commanders of the force were wounded yet the men went on fighting bravely and stubbornly, meter-by meter. The brigade's reconnaissance unit was rushed to the spot, and at dusk the target was finally taken. After this breakthrough all the other Syrian fortifications fell, and with them the entire Syrian line. The next day — the Golani command post was in Kuneitra — in the heart of the Golan.

Sources: Ori Devir, Off the Beaten Track in Israel: A Guide to Beautiful Places, NY: Adama Books, 1989, p. 24.