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Reuters

Israel agreed on Sunday to double its population on 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 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.
Israel captured most of the strategic plateau from Syria in the 1967 Six-Day War, annexing it in 1981.
In 2019 then-President Donald Trump declared US support for Israeli sovereignty over the Golan, but the annexation has not been recognised by most countries. Syria demands 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 “thwart the potential threats from Syria and to prevent the takeover of terrorist elements near our border,” he added.
Defence Minister Israel Katz said in a statement that the latest developments in Syria increased the threat to Israel, “despite the moderate image that the rebel leaders claim to present”.
Netanyahu’s office said the government unanimously approved a more than 40-million-shekel (US$11 million) plan 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 facing 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 UAE – which normalised relations with Israel in 2020 – describing it as a “deliberate effort to expand the occupation”.

Some 31,000 Israelis have settled there, said analyst Avraham Levine of the Alma Research and Education Center specialising in Israel’s security challenges on its northern border.
Many work in farming, 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.
Syria’s de facto leader, Ahmad al-Sharaa, said on Saturday that Israel was using false pretexts to justify its attacks on Syria, but he was not interested in engaging in new conflicts as his country focuses on rebuilding.
Sharaa – better known as Abu Mohammed al-Golani – leads the Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group that swept Assad from power last Sunday, ending the family’s five-decade iron-fisted rule.
Since then Israel has moved into a demilitarised zone inside Syria that was created after the 1973 Arab-Israeli war, including the Syrian side of the strategic Mount Hermon that overlooks Damascus, where its forces took over an abandoned Syrian military post.
Israel, which has said that it does not intend to stay there and calls the incursion into Syrian territory a limited and temporary measure to ensure border security, has also carried out hundreds of strikes on Syria’s strategic weapons stockpiles.

It has said it is destroying weapons and military infrastructure to prevent them from being used by rebel groups that drove Assad from power, some of which grew from 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 condition, after years of conflict and war, does not allow for new confrontations. The priority at this stage is reconstruction and stability, not being drawn into disputes that could lead to further destruction,” Sharaa said in an interview published on the website of Syria TV, a channel that sides with the rebels.
He also said diplomatic solutions were the only way to ensure security and stability and that “uncalculated military adventures” were not wanted.


Nations work to build ties with Syria’s new rulers a week after Assad fled

Life of Syria’s Assad revealed in private photos found in abandoned mansions

Syria rebel leader meets with visiting UN envoy

UK says it will provide US$63 million in humanitarian aid for ‘most vulnerable’ Syrians

Middle East

Israel plans to double population on occupied Golan Heights, citing threats from Syria

Israeli soldiers cross the security fence moving towards the so-called Alpha Line that separates the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights from Syria. Photo: AP

Israeli troops on the Syrian side of the border between Israel and Syria, near the Druze village of Majdal Shams, in the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights. Photo: EPA-EFE

The aftermath of an Israeli strike on a Syrian military site in Damascus. Photo: Reuters

Can Syria finally find stability after decades of war and repression?

Smoke billows in the distance as people arrive to celebrate the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad, in Damascus, Syria, on December 8. Photo: AP

HTS leader Abu Mohammed al-Golani speaks at a mosque in Damascus, Syria, on December 8. Photo: AP 

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi (left) is received by his Syrian counterpart Faisal Mekdad in Damascus, on July 17, 2021. Photo: AFP

India loses a key Kashmir ally with fall of Syria’s Assad

Kashmiri demonstrators hold an Islamic state flag in Srinagar, India, in 2014. Photo: AFP

India’s External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar meets Bassam al-Sabbagh, Syria’s then-foreign minister, on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in September. Photo: X/DrSJaishankar

A policeman from Hayat Tahrir al-Sham stands guard in front of Syria’s central bank in Damascus on Monday. Photo: AFP

A masked opposition fighter carries a flag of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham in the courtyard of the Umayyad Mosque in the old walled city of Damascus on Tuesday. Photo: AP 

Assad’s fall in Syria will not weaken ‘strong and powerful’ Iran: Khamenei

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei waves during a meeting in Tehran. Photo: Reuters

Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has the final say in his country’s affairs, accused the United States and “the Zionist regime”, Israel, of plotting against Assad. Photo: EPA-EFE

Syria’s rebel leader vows to dissolve Assad security forces, close prisons

A woman holding a rifle borrowed from a Syrian opposition fighter poses for a picture, next to a government forces tank in Damascus, Syria. Photo: AP

The Russian naval base at Tartus in western Syria on December 5 and (bottom) the same location after ships departed on December 10. Photo: Photo Maxar Technologies via AFP

Israeli soldiers operating in a location given as Golan Heights, in a picture released on December 11, 2024. Photo: Israel Defence Forces via Reuters

Syrian rebels expose ousted Assad regime’s drug trade, fuelled by Captagon

Captagon pills found at a drug manufacturing facility on the outskirts of Damascus, Syria. Photo: AFP

Syrian rebel fighters inspect electrical storage components that were used to hide pills of Captagon. Photo: AFP

Syrian rebel fighters inspect sacks marked to contain ‘Saudi-made’ flakes of caustic soda at a drug manufacturing facility. Photo: AFP

A bonfire of Captagon pills at Mazzeh airbase. Photo: AFP

News

World

Israel captured most of the strategic plateau from Syria in the 1967 Six-Day War, annexing it in 1981


Israel captured most of the strategic plateau from Syria in the 1967 Six-Day War, annexing it in 1981.


Syria

Syrian conflict

War and conflict

Israel