Damascus denounces Israel's plan to double Jewish settlers in Golan Heights

The plans of Israel to double the number of settlers residing in the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights are strongly condemned by Syria. According to a statement from the Syrian Foreign Ministry, the nation has criticised the “dangerous and unprecedented escalation from the Israeli occupation forces in the occupied Syrian Golan Heights and its persistence in settlement policies and grave and methodological violations that rise to the level of war crimes.” 

These comments came from the Syrian ministry when on Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett has disclosed a multimillion-dollar plan to increase the number of settlers in the territory that Israel annexed from Syria more than 50 years ago. In 2019, the United States acknowledged Israel's sovereignty over the Golan Heights. further, the rest of the world considers the land to be occupied by Israel, according to the Associated Press.  

In addition to this, as per the statement, the Syrian government stated that it remained dedicated to the citizens of Syria in the Golan who are unwavering in their struggle against the Israeli occupation and their disapproval of the plan to annex the Golan. Damascus also stated that it would "work to return it completely to the homeland with all available means guaranteed by international law," indicating that the Israeli government's occupation and alleged annexation of the territory violate multiple UNSC resolutions, Sputnik reported.  

Israeli govt plans to double the number of Jewish settlers

Meanwhile, on December 26, Israeli PM Bennett called a cabinet meeting in the Golan kibbutz of Mevo Hama, where he declared a $317 million plan to double the number of Jewish settlers in the land. Over the next five years, the plan calls for the construction of two new towns and 7,300 housing units, as well as the expansion of existing settler towns' housing stock. 

Furthermore, as per the Times of Israel, the territory's population is over 50,000 people, including 27,000 Jewish Israeli settlers, 24,000 Druze Arabs who stayed after the 1967 capture, and 2,000 Alawites, a Shia Muslim ethnoreligious community. Approximately 100,000 Syrian Arabs evacuated the Golan during the 1967 war and became refugees, when Israel conducted simultaneous stealth assaults on Egypt, Jordan, and Syria, and refused the right to return by the Israeli government. 

During the 1967 Middle East conflict, Israel took control of the Golan Heights, which it eventually annexed. Bennett claimed that Syria's decade-long civil war made the notion of Israeli control of the region more palatable to Israel's international allies and that the alternative was far worse, Sputnik reported.  

Image: AP/ Twitter-@Israelipm