JERUSALEM: Israel agreed on Sunday to double its population in the occupied Golan Heights, while saying the threat from Syria remains despite the moderate tone of rebel fighters who ousted President Bashar al-Assad a week ago. “To strengthen the Golan is to strengthen the State of Israel, and that is especially important at this time. We will maintain it, develop it and settle in it,” PM Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement.
Israel captured most of the strategic Syrian plateau in the 1967 Six-Day War, and annexed it in 1981. In 2019, then-President Trump announced US support for Israeli sovereignty over the Golan, but this occupation is not recognized by most countries. Syria demanded Israel to withdraw but Israel refused, citing security concerns.
Defense Minister Israel Katz told officials who scrutinize Israel’s defense budget, “The immediate risks to the country have not disappeared and the latest developments in Syria have increased the strength of the threat – despite the moderate image projected by rebel leaders.” Despite.” statement. Netanyahu’s office said the government had unanimously approved a plan worth more than 40 million shekels ($11m) to stimulate demographic development in the Golan. It said Netanyahu submitted the plan to the government “in view of the new front facing the war and Syria, and out of a desire to double the population of the Golan”.
Avraham Levin, an analyst at the Alma Research and Education Center who specializes in Israel’s security challenges along the northern border, said about 31,000 Israelis have settled there. The Golan, he said, is home to 24,000 Druze, an Arab minority who follow a branch of Islam. Most identify as Syrian.
Syria’s de facto leader, Abu Muhammad al-Jolani, who leads HTS, said on Saturday that Israel was using false pretexts to justify its attacks on Syria, but that there was no need to get involved in new conflicts. Not interested because his country focuses on reconstruction.
Since the fall of Assad, Israel has moved into a demilitarized zone inside Syria and launched hundreds of attacks on strategic weapons stockpiles. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Israel struck Syria 75 times in attacks that began Saturday night near Damascus and the cities of Hama and Homs.
Assad’s provocative pictures went viral, ridiculed
Bizarre and personal photographs of ousted Syrian President Bashar Assad have emerged from his abandoned residences, sparking ridicule among Syrians who until recently were persecuted simply for criticizing his leadership.
The images, reportedly discovered in photo albums from Assad’s mansions in the hills of Damascus and Aleppo, painted an unflattering portrait of Bashar and his father Hafez Assad, who ruled Syria with an iron fist for decades. They destroyed the carefully constructed image built by the Assad family.
In one photo, Hafiz Assad is shown in underwear in a bodybuilder-like pose. Other images showed Bashar Assad flexing his biceps in a Speedo; riding a yellow motorcycle in his briefs; One sitting on a handcycle, that too in his underwear; And wearing only white underwear and a sleeveless undershirt, she was staring blankly into the kitchen.
Social media footage shows Syrians touring Assad’s lavish properties, showing extravagant decorations, Jacuzzis and other lavish properties that have been out of reach of ordinary people living amid the civil war since 2011. Driven by decades of oppression and a desire for vengeance, the men snatched the mansion. Valuables and Assad’s private world were exposed, including some of his photo collections.
Indecent photographs of Assad in various states of undress and in strange scenarios quickly went viral, becoming the subject of jokes. “What is the matter with the Assad family and being photographed in their underwear? Very interesting to know the idea behind this,” journalist Hussam Hammoud wrote on X.
One particularly unique shot showed Bashar in a Speedo on a boat, surrounded by other people. Another shows him teasing a girl sitting on his shoulders on a balcony overlooking the sea. In a photo taken in mountainous surroundings, Bashar is seen with a group that reportedly also includes his cousin, Ihab Makhlouf, wearing a T-shirt bearing Hitler’s image.
America in direct contact with rebels behind Assad’s exit!
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken revealed on Saturday that Washington had made direct contacts with Hayat Tahrir al-Shamrebells, despite Washington previously designating the group as “terrorist”. Blinken would not discuss details of negotiations with HTS, which led the coalition of armed opposition groups that granted Assad refuge in Russia. Blinken said the easing of sanctions on Syria would depend on “continued action” by the rebel-installed interim government.
