The government of Israel approved on Sunday (26) a plan to double the number of Jewish inhabitants in the Golan Heights in five years, territory on the border with Syria that Tel Aviv captured and annexed after the Six-Day War, in 1967, maneuver which is not recognized by the international community.
Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, commenting on the measure, cited support for the recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the region given by former US President Donald Trump and celebrated the fact that current White House head Joe Biden did not reverse the decision. .
About 25,000 Israeli settlers live in the Golan Heights alongside another 23,000 Druze, an Arab minority who remained on the land after it was taken by Israel. The plan approved on Sunday calls for the construction of 7,300 new houses in Katzrin, the main Jewish settlement, in a maximum period of five years.
In February, shortly after Biden took over the presidency, Secretary of State Antony Blinken told CNN that control over the region remains vital to Israel’s security due to the presence of Iranian-backed groups and militias. in Syria, ruled by the dictator Bashar al-Assad. “If the situation changes, we can look at the legal issues, but we’re not even close to that,” he added.
According to The Jerusalem Post, the plan will cost 1 billion NIS (BRL 1.8 billion) for public coffers. Two new neighborhoods will be built in Katzrin, as well as two new cities, which will be called Asif and Matar, as well as transport and health systems.
Israeli settlement in the Golan Heights is much smaller in scale than in the occupied West Bank or East Jerusalem, areas also captured in the Six-Day War and claimed by the Palestinians.
Israel insists on occupying the territory by saying that the mountain range is essential for the country’s security, especially given the civil war in Syria and increased military pressure from Iran against Tel Aviv.
“After nearly ten years of the terrible war in Syria, every well-informed person understands that it is better to have an Israeli presence than the other alternative,” Prime Minister Bennett said after the announcement.
The civil war in Syria, which began in March 2011, has left more than 400,000 dead and 6.6 million refugees. The conflict fragmented the country, opened space for the strengthening of extremist factions and deepened instability in the Middle East.
When the Golan Heights were occupied in 1967, more than 130,000 Syrians fled the region. Since then, they have never been able to return, and around 340 villages and farms that existed there have been destroyed.
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