Israel announced plans to double its population in the occupied Golan Heights, earning international condemnation.

Israel's "demographic development" plan to increase settler numbers only applies to the area of the Golan Heights that Israel seized during the Six Day War in 1967 and later annexed in 1981 and not to territory taken since al-Assad's ouster.

People walk past a sign in the Druze village of Majdal Shams, located near the “Alpha Line” that separates the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights from Syria, Wednesday, Dec. 11, 2024. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix) People attend a rally celebrating the fall of Syrian President Bashar Assad’s government,

More than four decades later, the entire international community - bar the US and Israel - considers the Golan Heights to be Syrian territory under Israeli occupation. In 2019, the US recognised the Golan Heights as Israeli sovereign territory during Donald Trump’s first term – becoming the only state to do so.

Following the collapse of Bashar al-Assad's government, Israeli troops moved into the demilitarised zone inside Syria created after the 1973 Arab-Israeli war, including the Syrian side of the strategic Mount Hermon that overlooks Damascus, where it took over an abandoned Syrian military post.

Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, said he had ordered troops to “take over” the zone between his country and Syria.

T HE ROW of square grey forts slung across the horizon is a reminder of the days when Israel prepared for an onslaught by Syrian armoured divisions from the Golan Heights. That la

Israeli forces have seized a buffer zone in the Golan Heights established by a 1974 ceasefire agreement with Syria, whose rule by Syrian President Bashar Assad ended with takeover by rebels.

Residents of a Syrian village near the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights say Israeli forces have set up a position in an abandoned army base and are preventing local farmers from accessing their fields