Syrians Reject Israeli Plan for Wind Turbines in Occupied Golan Heights
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Residents of the Golan Heights organized a demonstration on Friday, protesting against Israel's plan to build wind turbines in the occupied Syrian region, saying that the action would result in additional expropriation of their lands.
Hundreds of demonstrators conducted a sit-in in the al-Manfukha area, east of Baraka village, to strongly oppose the proposed plan, according to Syria's official news agency SANA.
They say that the Israeli regime’s officials plan to seize approximately 6,000 dunams (1,482 acres) of their farmland in order to build a wind farm.
The demonstrators urged the world community to press the Tel Aviv regime to abandon the plan, saying that it is a clear breach of international legitimacy resolutions that will inevitably result in their displacement.
The wind turbine plan is reportedly among the Tel Aviv regime’s most dangerous colonial and Judaization plans targeting the occupied Golan Heights.
Israeli authorities want to build 46 wind turbines near the Golan towns of Majdal Shams, Ein Qiniyye, Buq'ata, and Mas'ade.
The Golan Heights is a region of Syria that has been militarily occupied by Israel since 1967. Damascus has repeatedly reaffirmed its sovereignty over the area, saying it must be completely restored to its control.
In 1967, Israel launched a full-scale invasion of Arab lands, occupying a substantial portion of the Golan and annexed it four years later — a move that was never recognized by the international community.
Another war followed in 1973, and a year later, a truce brokered by the United Nations came into effect, under which Tel Aviv and Damascus agreed to separate their soldiers and construct a buffer zone in the Golan Heights.
However, Israel has over the past several decades come up with dozens of illegal settlements in the occupied Golan in defiance of international calls for the regime to stop its illegal construction activities there.
In a unilateral move rejected by the international community in 2019, former US president Donald Trump signed a decree recognizing Israeli “sovereignty” over the Golan Heights.
Last December, Israel announced that it intends to double the number of its illegal settlements in the Golan Heights, despite an earlier resolution adopted by the UN General Assembly demanding the regime’s full withdrawal from the occupied territory.