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. |