Israel on Sunday agreed to double its population in the occupied Golan Heights while saying threats from Syria remained despite the moderate tone of rebel leaders who ousted President Bashar al-Assad a week ago.
“Strengthening the Golan strengthens the state of Israel, and that is especially important at this time. We will continue to hold on to it, make it blossom and settle in it,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement.
Israel captured most of the strategic plateau from Syria during the 1967 Six-Day War and annexed it in 1981.
In 2019, then-President Donald Trump declared US support for Israeli sovereignty over the Golan, but the annexation has not been recognized by most countries. Syria demands that Israel withdraw, but Israel refuses, citing security concerns. Various peace efforts have failed.
Netanyahu said he spoke with Trump on Saturday about security developments in Syria.
“We have no interest in a conflict with Syria,” Netanyahu said in a statement. Israeli actions in Syria were intended to “counter the potential threats from Syria and to prevent the takeover of terrorist elements near our border,” he added.
Defense Minister Israel Katz said in a statement that recent developments in Syria increased the threat to Israel, “despite the moderate image that rebel leaders claim to present.”
Netanyahu’s office said the government unanimously approved a plan of more than 40 million shekels ($11 million) to encourage demographic growth in the Golan.
It said Netanyahu submitted the plan to the government “in light of the war and the new front against Syria, and out of a desire to double the population of the Golan”.
Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates condemned Israel’s decision, with the United Arab Emirates – which normalized relations with Israel in 2020 – describing it as a “deliberate attempt to extend the occupation”.
About 31,000 Israelis have settled there, said analyst Avraham Levine of the Alma Research and Education Center, which specializes in Israel’s security challenges on its northern border. Many work in agriculture, including vineyards and tourism. The Golan is home to 24,000 Druze, an Arab minority who practice an offshoot of Islam, Levine said. Most identify as Syrian.
AVOID “NEW CONFRONTATIONS”
Syria’s de facto leader, Ahmad al-Sharaa, said on Saturday that Israel is using false pretexts to justify its attacks on Syria, but he was not interested in getting involved in new conflicts as his country focuses on reconstruction.
Sharaa – better known as Abu Mohammed al-Golani – heads the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) Islamist group that swept Assad from power on Sunday, ending the family’s five decades of iron-fisted rule.
Since then, Israel has moved into a demilitarized zone inside Syria created after the 1973 Arab-Israeli war, including the Syrian side of strategic Mount Hermon overlooking Damascus, where its forces took over an abandoned Syrian military post.
Israel, which has said it does not intend to stop there and calls the incursion into Syrian territory a limited and temporary measure to ensure border security, has also carried out hundreds of strikes against Syria’s strategic weapons depots.
It has said it is destroying weapons and military infrastructure to prevent their use by rebel groups that ousted Assad, some of which grew out of movements linked to al-Qaeda and Islamic State.
Several Arab countries, including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Jordan, have condemned what they called Israel’s seizure of a buffer zone in the Golan Heights.
“Syria’s war-weary state, after years of conflict and war, does not allow new confrontations. The priority at this stage is reconstruction and stability, not to be drawn into disputes that could lead to further destruction,” Sharaa said in an interview published on the Syria website TV, a channel that sides with the rebels.
He also said that diplomatic solutions were the only way to ensure security and stability and that “uncalculated military adventures” were not wanted.
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