BEIRUT: Rebels surrounded a government-held Druze village on the Syrian side of the cease-fire line on the Golan Heights Wednesday after heavy fighting, activists said.
The advance came a day after Israel, which has a significant Druze population, said it was preparing for the possibility that refugees fleeing fighting in the area might seek to cross to the Israeli-occupied side of the strategic plateau.
After fierce clashes with pro-government forces, rebels, including Islamist fighters, surrounded the village of Hader Wednesday, theSyrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
"Hader is now totally surrounded by rebels, who just took a strategic hilltop north of the village," Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP.