Israel Presses Washington to Recognize Golan Heights As Part of Its Territories

Israeli soldiers walk near mobile artillery units near the border with Syria in the Golan Heights on January 27, 2015. REUTERS/Baz Ratner
Israeli soldiers walk near mobile artillery units near the border with Syria in the Golan Heights on January 27, 2015. REUTERS/Baz Ratner
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Israel Presses Washington to Recognize Golan Heights As Part of Its Territories

Israeli soldiers walk near mobile artillery units near the border with Syria in the Golan Heights on January 27, 2015. REUTERS/Baz Ratner
Israeli soldiers walk near mobile artillery units near the border with Syria in the Golan Heights on January 27, 2015. REUTERS/Baz Ratner

After the United States' recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and the transfer of the US Embassy to it, Israel is pressing Washington to recognize the occupied Syrian Golan Heights as part of Israeli territories, Intelligence Minister Israel Katz said on Thursday.

In remarks to Israeli media, he said that Israel was making great efforts and was exerting friendly pressure on the administration of US President Donald Trump to recognize its sovereignty on the Golan Heights.

The Israeli minister predicted that these efforts would bear fruit with the approval of the US within months.

The Golan Heights is a strategic area in Syria, occupied since the June 1967 war. It extends over 1,200 square kilometers, giving the occupation the ability to explore large areas of Syria, Jordan and Lebanon.

The Syrian army was able to liberate it completely in the early days of the 1973 war, but withdrew from it in the last days of the war. Based on the Disengagement Agreement in 1974, Israel withdrew from part of it. In 1981, Israel enacted a law in the Knesset to annex it to Israeli sovereignty, in a move not recognized internationally.

Katz stressed that the new move was a natural extension of the US withdrawal from the international nuclear agreement with Iran, Trump's recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and the opening of a new US embassy in the occupied city this month.

He noted that the Israeli presence in the Golan Heights was a security necessity for Israel and its allies, an important monitoring station for the West over the domestic and international activity in Syria and a lever for Western interests in the region.



Israel Is Ramping up Annexation of West Bank, UN Rights Chief Says 

Israeli army vehicles block a road during an Israeli military operation in the West Bank city of Jenin, 14 March 2025. (EPA)
Israeli army vehicles block a road during an Israeli military operation in the West Bank city of Jenin, 14 March 2025. (EPA)
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Israel Is Ramping up Annexation of West Bank, UN Rights Chief Says 

Israeli army vehicles block a road during an Israeli military operation in the West Bank city of Jenin, 14 March 2025. (EPA)
Israeli army vehicles block a road during an Israeli military operation in the West Bank city of Jenin, 14 March 2025. (EPA)

Israel has significantly expanded and consolidated settlements in the occupied West Bank as part of the steady integration of these territories into the State of Israel, in breach of international law, the UN human rights office said on Tuesday.

The report to be presented to the UN Human Rights Council later this month comes amid growing fears of annexation amid US policy shifts under President Donald Trump and new settler outposts in areas of the West Bank seen as part of a future Palestinian state.

"The transfer by Israel of parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies amounts to a war crime," UN High Commissioner Volker Turk said in a statement accompanying the report, urging the international community to take meaningful action on Israel’s advancing settlement.

"Israel must immediately and completely cease all settlement activities and evacuate all settlers, stop the forcible transfer of the Palestinian population, and prevent and punish attacks by its security forces and settlers," he said.

Israel disengaged from the UN Human Rights Council earlier this year, alleging a chronic anti-Israeli bias. Its military says it is conducting counter-terrorism operations in the West Bank and targeting suspected militants.