1 of 4 | An Israeli soldier waves to a jeep of soldiers exiting from Syria into Israeli through the border fence with Syria in the northern Israeli-controlled Golan Heights on Tuesday. Israel is extending is presence on the ground inside Syria following the Syrian rebel takeover of most of the country in the past days. Photo by Jim Hollander/UPI | License Photo
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that he will double the Israeli population of the Golan Heights following the fall of Syria’s Bashar Al-Assad. The Israeli government approved the plan Sunday.
Netanyahu, who spoken Saturday night with U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, has approved a plan to expand the number of settlements in the occupied Golan Heights. Advertisement
“Strengthening the Golan is strengthening the State of Israel, and it is especially important at this time. We will continue to hold onto it, cause it to blossom, and settle in it,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement.
Netanyahu said the shift is necessary because a “new front” had emerged on Israel’s border with Syria after the fall of the Assad regime to an Islamist-led rebel alliance, the BBC reported.
Soldiers from the Israeli Defense Forces forces occupied a buffer zone separating the Golan Heights from Syria just after Assad’s departure, and said the change of control in Damascus meant ceasefire arrangements had “collapsed.”
There are currently more than 30 Israeli settlements in the Golan Heights, home to about 20,000 people. International law considers them illegal, which Israel disputes. Advertisement
Those settlers share the land with mostly Druze Aran Syrians who stayed when Israel gained control.
Netanyahu said Israel would continue to occupy the territory to “make it flourish and settle it.”
Netanyahu’s announcement comes a day after Syria’s new leader Ahmed al-Sharaa criticized Israel for its ongoing strikes on military facilities. The Syrian leader called Israel’s strikes “uncalculated military adventures.”
Netanyahu talked with Trump on Saturday night and called the Israeli president “my friend,” in a conversation that was “very friendly, warm, and important,” Netanyahu said in a statement. They discussed the need to “complete Israel’s victory” and efforts to release hostages held by Hamas in Gaza.
