RIYADH: Saudi Arabia on Sunday condemned the Israeli government’s approval of a plan to double the population of the occupied and annexed Golan Heights.
Israel’s government “unanimously approved” the $11 million “plan for the Golan… in light of the war and the new front in Syria and the desire to double the population,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said.
“The Kingdom renews its call to the international community to condemn these Israeli violations, stressing the need to respect Syria’s sovereignty and territorial integrity,” the Saudi Foreign Ministry said in a statement as reported by Arab News.
The Saudi Foreign Ministry said that the strategic Golan Heights is Syrian Arab land and condemned Israel’s “continued sabotage of Syria’s chances of restoring its security and stability.”
Israeli Occupation of Syria’s Golan Heights
Israel has occupied most of the Golan Heights since 1967 and annexed that area in 1981 in a move recognized only by the United States.
The occupied Golan is home to about 23,000 Druze Arabs, whose presence predates the occupation and most of whom hold Syrian citizenship, as well as around 30,000 Israelis.
Last week, Netanyahu declared that the annexed Golan would be Israeli “for eternity”.
That followed an order he gave for troops to cross into a UN-patrolled buffer zone separating Israeli and Syrian forces since 1974. Troops also seized areas beyond the buffer, including on Mount Hermon.
In the aftermath of Assad’s fall, Israel also launched hundreds of strikes on Syria — according to a war monitor — targeting strategic military sites and weapons, including chemical weapons.
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Ahmed al-Sharaa, the head of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham who toppled Assad, on Saturday, accused Israel of “a new unjustified escalation in the region” by entering the buffer zone.
However, he said, “the general exhaustion in Syria after years of war and conflict does not allow us to enter new conflicts”.
Washington in 2019 became the first and so far only country to recognise Israeli sovereignty over the Golan, during Trump’s first term.
