From DW News.

Israel plans on doubling its population in the occupied Golan Heights, a disputed strip of land along the border with Syria. Israel captured most of the Golan Heights from Syria in the 1967 Six-Day War, and effectively annexed the territory in 1981. Israel has struck Syria more than 450 times since Assad’s regime was toppled, and Israeli forces have moved into the Syrian buffer zone which had been demilitarized as part of a 1974 ceasefire. The Israeli military says it is targeting military infrastructure. Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said the new rebel leaders in Damascus posed a threat to Israel, “despite the moderate image that the rebel leaders claim to represent.”

The makeup of a future Syrian government remains to be determined, with several groups operating in different parts of the country. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that the US was in contact with Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, the Islamist group which toppled Assad. Currently, 900 US forces are stationed in eastern Syria, with the US in control of oil reserves there. The US has been channeling the profits from these oil reserves to Kurdish forces in Syria.

Chapter Breakdown

0:00 Israel aims to double population in occupied Golan Heights
2:56 Steven Simon, Senior Research Fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, on Israeli strikes in Syria and US troop presence in eastern Syria

#syria #hts #israel
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