Syria Protests Israel's Plan for Settlements in Golan Heights

teleSUR

Syria criticizes Israel's announcement about increasing its illegal settlements in the Golan Heights and stresses that this area will belong to Syria forever.

On Monday, the Syrian Foreign Ministry Faisal Mikdad condemned Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett's comments expressing his intention to increase settlements in the occupied Syrian Golan Heights. The Syrian official stressed that such aggressive statements and policies could not change the eternal truth of the area.

"The Golan has been and will remain for Syria and sooner or later, it will return to the embrace of its homeland," reads the Syrian government statement, as reported by the Lebanese Al-Mayadeen channel.

On the other hand, residents of the plateau have organized this same day a demonstration against the policies of the usurper regime, emphasizing that they will not allow any settlement project to be implemented in the region.

"We deny these plans that Israel intends to establish on lands that have belonged to us for hundreds of years and that our ancestors gave their lives to preserve," denounced a group of protesters.

The anger of the Syrians has come in reaction to a meeting of Israeli officials held earlier Monday on the plan to expand illegal Israeli settlements in the highlands mentioned above. According to local reports, the Tel Aviv regime plans to build 7000 new housing units for its settlers. In this framework, if these settlements are built, the number of Israeli settlers will increase from 40,000 to 100,000.

For his part, the Israeli Prime Minister confirmed in a speech on Monday that his regime intends to "double again and again double" the number of its settler occupants in the highlands above.

Israel occupied part of the Golan plateau (in southern Syria) after the Six-Day war in 1967. The area was incorporated into its legal system in 1981, which implies a de facto annexation, which has been rejected by many countries and organizations globally, such as the United Nations Security Council.