Eli Malka, a veteran and the long-admired head of the Golan Regional Council, is naturally following events closely as things heat up in the sector. He cannot help thinking that within a year or two, the 24,000 people living in the Golan Heights will find themselves in the same situation as the residents of the Israeli towns and villages surrounding Gaza — with all that this implies.

Something changed, however, during the past few weeks. Security incidents in Syria have become more intense, and they are increasingly seeping across the border. Disconcerting incidents on the Golan from the past few days alone include a Syrian drone being shot down by the air force after it penetrated Israeli airspace Aug. 31, a tank shell striking a winery in the northern Golan Aug. 27, and fighting in Quneitra, which interfered with apple-picking season on the kibbutzim Merom Golan and Ein Zivan, because their orchards were frequently declared closed military zones.

Over the past two years, the civil war in Syria and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's teetering regime led to a change in Israel's military deployment across the Golan Heights. An ominous fence was built separating Israeli-controlled Golan from Syria, and various protection measures were put in place. Yet the region has remained peaceful throughout the entire time.

Echoes of nearby explosions could be heard in the area, resonating from the battles between the Syrian army and the rebels opposing the government. The Israel Defense Forces occasionally blocked roads and redirected traffic onto alternative routes, worried that the gun or mortar fire might spillover. Residents from the northern Golan Heights who made their way to the funeral were constantly updated about the dynamic, constantly changing map of blocked roads. They have been watching as their quiet, pastoral lives undergo an abrupt change.

Sgt. Shahar Shalev , the 72nd casualty of Operation Protective Edge, was laid to rest Sept. 2 at a funeral in the Hispin community on the Golan Heights. Shalev hailed from the neighboring community of Alonei HaBashan, less than a kilometer from the Syrian border.

“Operation Protective Edge changed something about the way I think,” said Malka in an interview with Al-Monitor. “Over the past few days, I’ve been speaking with my colleagues, the heads of the regional councils in the south. They told me that their big mistake was thinking that the government knew what it was doing and was acting accordingly. It was a kind of fundamental belief, but it turned out to be wrong. That’s why we have to wake up the government. We have to make sure that it takes immediate action. We have to set off warning signals and think about what to do next. Otherwise we’ll wake up three years from now, and it will already be too late.

Al-Monitor: “Too late”? What do you mean by that?

Malka: We go about our lives normally here, at least in most of the localities in the Golan Heights. The one exception is the communities adjacent to the Quneitra border crossing. They can hear all the blasts from there, and they sound very close. They can actually observe the fighting up close.

I worry that we’ll get caught in a routine, and then we’ll suddenly be surprised. It is within this context that I think about the abduction of [Israeli soldier] Gilad Shalit. We spoke about the kidnapping for years, but not about the tunnels through which it was carried out. It was only after the terrorists came out of the shafts during Operation Protective Edge that the security apparatus recognized the threat that these tunnels posed. It was as if it everything passed under their radar until then, so they didn’t do anything.

It’s the same thing here. We’ve been taking protective measures for two years now. We may have built a fence. We may have prepared ourselves and practiced our responses to all sorts of scenarios, but I’m still worried that there is no strategic thinking going on.

Until now, Israel has been a passive observer to events in Syria. It has watched as crazy Islamists from around the world go to Syria and operate along our border. Now that they've taken took the Quneitra crossing, they are sitting right on the border. Syria has become a stateless land right in front of our eyes. It is a place where every maniac and every gang can do whatever it wants. It is only a matter of time before they aim their guns at us too. We have a very long border here, with lots of communities. The time to act is now. We can’t afford to wait around like we did with the tunnels.”

Al-Monitor: What do you think Israel can do?

Malka: In my opinion, the State of Israel should take meaningful measures to ensure that there is a properly run state across the border. Regardless of what anyone used to think at the start, the fall of Assad isn’t in our interests. What we need here is strategic thinking, regional alliances, and perhaps even the creation of a deep security strip to signal to them they don’t want to start up with us. It makes no sense to have them sitting on the border fence.

Golan Regional Council head Eli Malka (R) walks with with IDF Chief of Staff Benny Gantz, Golan Heights, April 2014. (photo by Rina Nagila)

I walk around feeling very worried that the same thing will happen here as what happened with the tunnels. The government won’t understand the significance of the threat until the Golan Heights are infiltrated.

I hear that 10,000 Islamist militants have already infiltrated the region. It is not out of the question that there will be as many as 40,000 in another three or four years, and they will all want to get to the al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem.

Al-Monitor: Do you feel like this is hurting day-to-day life or the local economy?

Malka: Life is good for now. Things are normal. We have a very high quality of life here. Our education system is excellent, and local agriculture is thriving. But as time goes by, you begin to realize that these incidents aren’t some passing phase. We had a few days here, when we couldn’t pick the apples in any of our orchards near Quneitra. There was a shooting incident in which the winery of one of our kibbutzim was hit. None of that is very pleasant.

I’m very worried about what will happen here in the next year or two. We’ve had forty years of quiet here, and we’ve been able to build a breathtakingly beautiful and flourishing region that manages to attract people to it. I really don’t know what will happen when the mortars and rockets start falling. We’re in the same range as the communities that surround the Gaza Strip. Here too, the sirens go off as the rockets start falling.