Tal Saki, Volcanic mountain in Golan Heights, Israel
Tal Saki is a small dormant volcanic hill in the southeastern Golan Heights, about 490 m above sea level and roughly 30 m above its surroundings. Its steep slopes are covered with basalt boulders and thorny scrub, and a paved road curves across its flank. On the summit stand low rectangular structures and thin antennas, with a wire fence and a white Hebrew sign on the lower slope.
On its summit stood a ruin, and dolmens and walls of basalt stones lay at its foot. In 1973, at the start of the Yom Kippur War, a battle was fought at the hill: an observation force of five paratroopers under Lt. Menachem Ansbacher, joined by six tanks, was surrounded by Syrian forces and held out until October 8. After the war the original bunker was destroyed and a memorial site was established on the summit.
The name Tel Saki means "the watered hill" in Arabic, either from groundwater that keeps the hill's vegetation green most of the year or from irrigation channels that once ran around it. At the foot of the hill are dolmens and walls of basalt stones, and a ruined structure once stood on the summit.
The summit is reached by a paved road that curves across the hill's slope, and a wire fence and a white sign with Hebrew text stand on the lower slope. The site lies about 400 metres east of the Golan's main north-south road, between Hamat Gader and the Refid junction, some 3 km north of Moshav Ramat Magshimim. The memorial room and bunker are on the hilltop.
The Hebrew name Tel Saki means "the watered hill", explained either by groundwater that keeps the hill's vegetation green most of the year or by irrigation channels that once ran around it. The summit holds a memorial to the 32 soldiers killed in the October 1973 battle, with their photographs beneath the inscription "My friends who did not return from the hill".
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