Israel plans to expand Golan settlements after Assad’s fall
The government of Israel has approved a plan to encourage the expansion of settlements in the occupied Golan Heights.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the move was necessary because a “new front” had opened up on Israel’s border with Syria following the fall of the Assad regime at the hands of the Islamist-led rebel coalition.
Netanyahu said he wanted to double the population of the Golan Heights, which Israel seized during the 1967 Six-Day War and is considered illegally occupied under international law.
Israeli forces moved into the buffer zone separating the Golan Heights from Syria in the days after Assad’s departure, saying the change of control in Damascus meant the ceasefire arrangement had “collapsed”.
There are more than 30 Israeli settlements in the Golan Heights, home to an estimated 20,000 people. These are considered illegal under international law, which Israel disputes.
The settlers live here along with about 20,000 Syrians, most of them Druze Arabs who did not flee when the area came under Israeli control.
Netanyahu said Israel would “retain the territory, develop it and settle it”.
The announcement came a day after Syria’s new de facto leader Ahmed al-Shaara criticized Israel for ongoing attacks on military targets in the country, which reportedly targeted military facilities.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) has documented more than 450 Israeli airstrikes in Syria since December 8, including 75 since Saturday evening.
Al-Sharaa – also known as Abu Mohammed al-Jolani – said the attacks “crossed red lines” and risked escalating tensions in the region, though added that Syria would avoid any conflict with any neighboring state. Don’t want to.
Speaking to Syria TV, which has been seen as a supporter of the opposition during the civil war, al-Sharaa said the country’s “war-torn situation, after years of conflict and war, does not allow for new confrontations “, Reuters reported.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has not commented on his comments, but previously said the strikes were necessary to prevent weapons from falling “into the hands of extremists”.
President Bashar al-Assad and his family fled and sought refuge in Russia when al-Shara’s Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) led other rebel groups in a major assault on Damascus.
These groups continue to form a transitional government in Syria, with al-Sharaa as its principle head.
On Saturday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Washington had made direct contact with HTSWhich the US and other Western governments still designate as a terrorist organization.
UN Syria envoy Geir Pedersen said on Sunday he hoped sanctions on the country would end soon to help economic recovery.
“We hope there will be a quick end to the sanctions so we can really come together to build Syria,” said Pedersen, who arrived in Damascus to meet with Syria’s caretaker government and other officials.
Elsewhere, Turkish Defense Minister Yasar Guler said Ankara was ready to provide military support to Syria’s new government.
“It is important to see what the new administration will do. We think it is important to give them a chance,” Güler said of HTS, according to state news agency Anadolu and other Turkish media outlets.
