People in occupied Golan, on 41st anniversary of annexation, renew their adherence to their land and their Syrian Arab identity

Occupied Syrian Golan, (ST) – Forty-one years have passed since the null and void decision of the Israeli occupation entity to annex the occupied Syrian Golan was issued, yet the people in Golan affirm every day their adherence to their land and their Syrian Arab identity. They have stressed their steadfastness in the face of the occupation and its arbitrary practices, their rejection of the occupation’s decisions and procedures and their steadfastness until the entire Golan is liberated.

The decision, issued by the occupation on this day in 1981, has been part of the occupation’s continuous attacks against the Golan and its people that began since its occupation in 1967. These attacks have been represented in the escalation of settlement building activities, the displacement of the people, the bulldozing of villages and towns and the establishment of new settlements.

The Israeli annexation decision received widespread international rejection, as the UN Security Council issued Resolution No. 497 on December 17, 1981, confirming the Syrian Arab identity of the Golan and stressing that the annexation decision is null and void. But this resolution remained ink on paper as a result of the occupation’s refusal to implement it, benefiting from the support and protection provided to it by the West, led by the United States, at the Security Council.

Despite the criminality of the occupation, the people in the Golan resisted its repressive practices and its null and void annexation decision through keeping steadfast on their land, reiterating their adherence to the national document they issued on March 25, 1981 which affirmed that the occupied Golan is an integral part of Syria.

 On the 14th of February, 1982, the people in the Golan announced a comprehensive strike that lasted for six months. Demonstrations spread across the entire Golan in rejection of the racist colonialist decision. In response, the Israeli occupation carried out wide-scale detention campaigns, cut off water and electricity for the people in the occupied villages and imposed a siege that lasted for 40 days. Despite all these arbitrary practices, the people in the occupied Syrian Golan never gave up and they resisted the criminality of the occupation, stressing their refusal to submit to the occupation and its procedures.

Today, the people of the Golan are renewing their adherence to their land and their rejection of the Judaization plans of the occupation, the most recent of which was the establishment of wind turbines on thousands of dunums of their lands in the towns of Majdal Shams, Ain Qinya, Baqatha and Mas’ada, as well as the announcement of a plan to establish 12,000 new settlement units to double the number of settlers in the Golan and change the demographic situation in it.They affirmed their adherence to every inch of the Golan.

In a statement to SANA reporter in the occupied Golan, Sheikh Jad al-Karim Nasser said: “The firm stance of the people of the Golan was stronger than the decision of the occupation, as the Golan can’t be annexed bu such a decision. The Golan is the history of a people who offered hundreds of martyrs in their struggle against the occupation, and the identity of the Golan is written by the blood of its martyrs, the blood that stressed that Golan will remain a Syrian Arab land.”

For his part, the ex-prisoner in the Israeli jails Fouad Al-Shaer indicated that the Israeli occupation’s plans against our people in the occupied Golan have not stopped since the beginning of this occupation. These plans included among other things attempts to “impose the Israeli identity” and to hold the so-called “local council elections” and the project of building wind turbines that aimed at displacing the people from their land.

Syria constantly reaffirms that the occupied Golan is an integral part of its territory and that it is working to return every inch of its soil by all available means as an eternal right.

The United Nations General Assembly, by the majority of its member states, annually renews its call on the Israeli occupation to withdraw completely from the occupied Syrian Golan to the line of June 4, 1967 and to implement the relevant Security Council resolutions, foremost of which is Resolution No. 497, as well as the Council’s most recent resolutions in this regard which were issued on the 30th of last month and the 12th of this month.

Raghda Sawas

Raghda Sawas