Israel to send 250,000 settlers to occupied Golan

JERUSALEM

The Israeli government hopes to settle some 250,000 Israelis in the occupied Syrian Golan heights over the next 30 years, the Israeli Broadcasting Authority (IBA) reported on Monday.

The report comes one week after U.S. President Donald Trump signed a presidential proclamation recognizing the Golan Heights as “Israeli territory”

According to the IBA, the Israeli plan also includes construction of two new Jewish-only settlements in the Golan, along with thousands of new settlement units and a raft of planned transport and tourism projects in the region.

The population of the Golan Heights currently stands at some 50,000, including 22,000 Israeli settlers, according to Israeli figures.

Israel had long pushed Washington to recognize its claim over the strategic plateau, which it seized from Syria during the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, but previous U.S. administrations had refrained from doing so.