The Government of Israel has unanimously approved this Sunday a plan of more than ten million euros in education and energy, among other matters, in order to double the population in the Israeli settlements of the Golan Heights, Syrian territory it occupies. partially since the 1967 war.
“The government unanimously approved Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s plan to promote population growth in the Golan Heights and Katsrin for more than 40 million shekels (more than 10.5 million euros). ),” reported a statement from the President’s Office this afternoon.
The Government’s decision comes when Israeli troops have seized, for a week, new territory in the areas of the Golan Heights controlled by Syria, under the pretext of avoiding possible Islamist threats after the fall of Bashar’s regime. Assad.
“Strengthening the Golan Heights is strengthening the State of Israel and is especially important at this time. We will continue to hold on to it, make it flourish and colonize it,” Netanyahu said in the text.
The measure, approved by the Government as an amendment to a development plan implemented years ago, seeks to increase the number of Israeli settlers in the thirty settlements in the area, where more than 25,000 Jews already live, according to the most recent figures.
In addition, it seeks to create a student village and includes urban development plans that will help the Golan Regional Council “to absorb new residents.”
Already at the end of 2021, the short-lived Government of Naftali Bennet, of the New Right party, approved a special development plan with the objective of doubling the Israeli population of the Golan Heights within a period of five years and which had financing of one trillion shekels.
After the fall of al Assad, Israeli tanks tour the demilitarized area in southern Syria, confiscating weapons and attacking “military objectives”, in an operation that the authorities describe as “limited and temporary”, despite the fact that many voices in the The international community, including the UN, consider it a violation of Syrian sovereignty.
According to the count of Israeli institutions, some 40,000 people live in the occupied Golan Heights, including Druze, an Alawite Muslim minority, and Arabs of Syrian origin, who historically reject Israeli citizenship (a phenomenon that is increasingly less common among the new generations). ).
