Training camp or abandoned facility?

The paved side road leading from the Ein Saheb village down to the narrow green valley or wadi was blocked by a lone policeman on his white motorbike.

Without saying a word, he simply put up his hand making it clear that access to the wadi at the end of the road was not an option.

There was no heavy military presence in the area other than a couple of army jeeps and cars driving up and down the unpaved road.

Further down the road, families were getting ready to enjoy lunch on the shady terrace of a roadside restaurant.

Abandoned

This hilly area, a 15-minute drive north-west of Damascus, was the target of an Israeli air raid early on Sunday morning which has prompted Syria to table a UN resolution demanding condemnation of Israel.

Syria insists there are no militant training camps on its soil

Syria maintains that the Israelis targeted a civilian area, but the site of the attack itself remains off-limits.

The Syrian authorities' decision to deny access to the site is the usual modus operandi for this authoritarian state, but it is a decision that could raise suspicions at some point.

A shopkeeper in the area said the Israelis had targeted a training camp of "some militants", but that there was no-one there at the time of the strike.

Other villagers said the camp, belonging to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC), had been abandoned any time between a year and several years ago.

Syria maintains that the Israelis targeted a civilian area and the Islamic Jihad, whose camp Israel claimed it had targeted, denies having any training camps in Syria.

Anniversary

In Damascus, celebrations were under way for a national holiday commemorating the Yom Kippur War of 1973.

It is known in Syria as the October War and is described here as a great victory by the late President Hafez al-Assad, as Syria managed to regain some land from the Golan Heights which it lost to Israel in 1967.

"We fought them before, we will fight them again if they come, we are not afraid of the Israelis Omar Hassan, shoe-shine man

On television, documentaries about the 1973 war were shown all day, along with propaganda video clips praising the Syrian army and speeches by the late President Assad.

"We fought them before, we will fight them again if they come, we are not afraid of the Israelis," said Omar Hassan, a shoe-shine man.

One woman said she was very worried about the future and the safety of her family.

"Obviously, the Israelis are willing to hit Syria, what if they hit Damascus next?" she asked.

Proxy war

Although the Syrian Golan Heights remain occupied by Israel, Damascus has long opted for the safety of waging a war by proxy against its arch-foe, for example through Lebanon's guerrilla movement Hezbollah.

Hamas members have found shelter in Syria in the past

However, Syrian military positions in Lebanon have been hit in the past.

With Damascus' blessing, training camps for radical groups from the Kurdish PKK to the Red Army and various Palestinian groups were customarily located in the Lebanese Bekaa valley during Lebanon's civil war.

Young Palestinian men interviewed in April this year in refugee camps in Syria said they had recently been trained in Lebanon to handle weapons.

Since the 1993 Oslo agreements, Syria has given shelter to radical Palestinian groups, such as Hamas, the Islamic Jihad and the PFLP-GC.

But Damascus maintains that these groups engage only in media activities.

Since the US pressured Syria to close down the groups' offices in May, high-profile Palestinian leaders such as Hamas's Khaled Meshaal have been travelling to Lebanon to give interviews.

But Washington says Syria has not done enough yet.