Life under Occupation
in the Golan Heights

Israel seized the Golan Heights from Syria in the closing stages of its 1967 Six-Day War on Arab countries, which also saw the regime occupy the Palestinian territories of the West Bank, East al-Quds, and the Gaza Strip.

Zionist regime occupied a large swathe of the Golan in 1967 and annexed it four years later – a move never recognized by the international community.

In 1973, another war broke out; and a year later a UN-brokered ceasefire came into force, according to which Tel Aviv and Damascus agreed to separate their troops and create a buffer zone in the Heights. However, Israel has over the past several decades built dozens of illegal settlements in Golan in defiance of international calls for the regime to stop its illegal construction activities.

In a unilateral move rejected by the international community in 2019, former US President Donald Trump signed a decree recognizing Israeli “sovereignty” over Golan.

Nevertheless, Syria has repeatedly reaffirmed its sovereignty over Golan, saying the territory must be completely restored to its control.

The United Nations has also time and again emphasized Syria’s sovereignty over the territory.

The Zionist regime now plans to double the settler population in the Golan, prompting a UN General Assembly resolution last month in condemnation of the move.

On December 26, Zionist regime prime minister Naftali Bennett’s cabinet voted in favor of a plan that aims to build 7,300 settler homes in Golan over a five-year period. The decision was taken during the cabinet meeting in Golan.

It aims to attract roughly 23,000 new Zionist settlers to the area occupied during the Six Day War in 1967.

Syrian foreign ministry calls Israeli move to double the number of settlers in annexed region ‘dangerous and unprecedented’.

Syria says Israel’s plans to double the number of settlers living in Israeli-annexed Golan Heights are “dangerous and unprecedented” and only perpetuate its occupation of the territory.

“Syria strongly condemns the dangerous and unprecedented escalation from the Israeli occupation forces in the occupied Syrian Golan Heights and its persistence in settlement policies and grave and methodological violations that rise to the level of war crimes,” a Syrian foreign ministry statement said.

The statement said the Syrian government remains committed to the Syrians “who are steadfast in their resistance to the Israeli occupation and their rejection of the decision to annex the Golan”.

Syria has long demanded the return of the 1,200sq-km (460sq-mile) strip of land, which also overlooks Lebanon and borders Jordan.

Some 50,000 people live in the Golan Heights – roughly half of them Jewish Israelis and half in Druze Arab villages that formerly were part of Syria. Some of the Druze population opposes Israeli control.

Meanwhile, the UN General Assembly on December 2021 adopted a resolution demanding that Israel withdraw from the Syria’s Golan Heights, declaring that the regime’s decision to impose its jurisdiction in the occupied heights is “null and void”.

After introducing the draft resolutions titled ‘The Syrian Golan’ (A/76/L.15) by a recorded vote of 94 in favor to 8 against, with 69 abstentions during a session, the Assembly reaffirmed that settlement construction and any other Israeli activities constitute a change in the demographic nature of the occupied Syrian Golan.

“Deeply concerned that Israel has not withdrawn from the Syrian Golan, which has been under occupation since 1967, contrary to the relevant Security Council and General Assembly resolutions,” the resolution read while calling on Israel to resume peace talks and withdraw from the occupied Syrian Golan in accordance with the border lines of June 4,1967.

The Israeli decision to impose its laws, jurisdiction, and administration on the occupied Syrian Golan is null and void, it declared.

Introducing the draft resolution, Permanent Representative of Egypt to the United Nations Osama Mahmoud Abdel Khalek Mahmoud said the first step to stopping the downward spiral in the Middle East was to put an end to the occupation of all Arab territories occupied on 5 June 1967, specifically the occupied Palestinian territory and the occupied Syrian Golan.

“The international community must take a decisive position towards respect of international law and international resolutions, most important of which are the United Nations resolutions that reaffirm the inadmissibility of annexation of territories by force and the rejection of any unilateral measures or demographic changes in territories under occupation,” he said.

The representatives of Jordan, Oman, and Argentina also voiced their support for the resolution and called for an end to the occupation of the Golan Heights.

the Golan, is a region in the Levant spanning about 1,800 square kilometres (690 sq mi). The region defined as the Golan Heights differs between disciplines: as a geological and biogeographical region, the Golan Heights refers to a basaltic plateau bordered by the Yarmouk River in the south, the Sea of Galilee and Hula Valley in the west.

In the Bible, Golan is mentioned as a city of refuge located in Bashan.

The plateau's north–south length is approximately 65 kilometres (40 mi) and its east–west width varies from 12 to 25 kilometres (7.5 to 15.5 miles).[39][40]

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