MAJDAL SHAMS, Golan Heights — Until the Internet came to this Druze village in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights in late 1990s, residents used to go to an area known as the shouting hill and use megaphones to communicate with relatives across the fence in the motherland, Syria.

From the vantage point of Majdal Shams, a Syrian village peeps out from behind a hillside across the valley. Damascus is 40 minutes away by car.

It was at this point a week ago that about 100 Palestinians living in Syria breached the border fence and crowded into Majdal Shams in a protest to mark the anniversary of Israel’s creation and the plight of the Palestinian refugees who demand a right to return. Four people were killed here when Israeli troops opened fire in the border area, shattering a calm of more than three decades and putting an international spotlight on this usually sleepy village near Mount Hermon.

But for the roughly 20,000 Arabs of the Druze religious sect who live in Majdal Shams and in nearby villages, this is Syrian territory — even though Israel has occupied this strategic plateau since the 1967 war and has extended Israeli law here. In the two months since the outbreak of the uprising in Syria, the Druze of the Golan have been preoccupied with, and divided by, events on the other side of the fence.