Israel approved a plan on Sunday to double the number of inhabitants in Jewish settlements in the Golan Heights, part of a project worth more than 300 million dollars, 40 years after the annexation of Syrian territory.
Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, who held Sunday’s cabinet meeting in the community of Mevo Hama, in Golan, said it was time to strengthen the presence of Israeli Jews in the territory.
“Our objective is to double the population of Golan,” the right-wing head of Government declared during the presentation of the program to improve housing, the transport system, tourism and medical care in the area, for an amount of 317 million dollars.
Bennett had to leave the meeting after his daughter tested positive for covid-19 and initiated isolation, but after a short break the cabinet voted and approved the plan to build 7,300 new homes for settlers in the region within a period of five years.
Nearly 25,000 Israeli settlers live in the Golan Heights, alongside 23,000 Druze (Arabic-speaking ethno-religious ethno-religious group) who remained on their land after Israel’s takeover of the Golan during the 1967 Six-Day War.
Israel annexed the territory on December 14, 1981, but most of the international community does not recognize the measure.
Former US President Donald Trump, a great ally of Israel, claimed in 2019 that his country would recognize Israeli sovereignty in the Golan Heights.
“Needless to say, the Golan Heights is Israeli,” Bennett said Saturday, recalling Trump’s commitment and noting as “important” the fact that Joe Biden’s government “has made it clear that there is no change in policy.”
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said shortly after Biden took office as president about the legal problems Trump’s claim could have, in what Syria considers a “blatant violation of its sovereignty.”
Blinken, however, declared that there are no plans to turn back, especially with the ongoing Syrian civil war.
Israel and Syria, which technically remain at war, are separated by a de facto border in the Golan Heights.
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