The area of Mount Hermon that is under Israeli control extends to 70 square kilometers, and the entire Golan Heights is 1,250 square kilometers.

Pinter's report will not be released ahead of the upcoming UN Security Council meeting on the situation in Lebanon and an extension of the mandate of the UN Interim Force in Lebanon. The United Nations has decided there is no reason to raise the issue in the absence of an agreement on a diplomatic process to resolve the dispute and transfer control of the territory.

Pinter is due to visit the Shebaa Farms area before submitting his final report on the matter. His current findings are based on material submitted by the Lebanese government as well as his familiarity with the area from the period when he coordinated the mapping of the Blue Line border between Israel and Lebanon after Israel withdrew from southern Lebanon in 2000.

The Shebaa Farms was pastureland of the Lebanese village Shebaa, in a region that had been part of the French mandate over Syria and Lebanon. The border between Syria and Lebanon, set in a 1923 agreement between the British and French mandatory powers, was not made completely clear. After the Israel Defense Forces withdrew from Lebanon, the Lebanese said Shebaa Farms was part of their sovereign territory. Lebanon's claim was accepted by the Arab League, and forms part of the Arab peace initiative.

Israel convinced the United Nations in 2000 that the Shebaa Farms are part of the Golan Heights and do not belong to Lebanon, and that the future of that area will be determined in Israeli-Syrian negotiations over the Golan. But the controversy has not abated, and after the Second Lebanon War last summer, the United Nations decided to map the area as a basis for determining who should have sovereignty over it.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert rejected an American proposal during the war to transfer the Shebaa Farms to the United Nations, saying that doing so would be "rewarding terrorism".

“The UN has not asked the government of Israel to hand over the Sheeba Farms to the UN,” a UN official said.

“The UN’s cartogropher (mapping experts) continues his work and will be visiting the area (Shebaa) shortly. The secretary-general remains engaged on the issue.”

Israel was treating the issue “with kid gloves” out of concern a public statement by the UN could lead to renewed conflict with Hezbollah guerrillas.

Sources: Haaretz, Reuters