Our people in Golan insist on resisting Israeli occupation and its plans

Our people in the occupied Syrian Golan today commemorate the 39th anniversary of the comprehensive strike against the invalid Israeli occupation’s decision to annex the Golan.   They go on strike as an annual national tradition through which they affirm their adherence to the Syrian Arab identity and their struggle and confrontation of  all Israeli settlement plans in the occupied Golan until the liberation of its entire territory and its return to the homeland.

The Israeli Knesset issued a decision on December 14, 1981 to annex the occupied Golan and impose Israeli laws on its people. Then,  our people in the occupied Golan went on a    strike on the 14th  of February 1982 when they confronted the ill-fated decision of the Israeli occupation Knesset. Since then they have been carrying out an open strike to reject the imposition of the “Israeli identity” and the invalid annexation decision, and to confirm their adherence to their national identity. They express their continuous struggle in the face of the arbitrary occupation measures until the liberation of the Golan Heights and the return to the homeland of Syria.

The occupation forces, as soon as the strike was announced, imposed a comprehensive military siege on the villages and towns in the Golan, and prevented the arrival of foodstuffs and cut the power off in an attempt to obscure what is happening and isolate them from the outside world to pressure and force them to end the strike and accept its laws. It also arrested dozens of young people from the Golan after raids on homes and imposed curfews in various villages.

The unarmed people of the Golan met the unjust siege and the pressures of the occupation with steadfastness, resistance and attachment to their lands and villages. During the period of the strike they waged violent confrontations with the occupation forces, the most important of which was the “identity battle” that took place on April 1, 1982, after the occupation forces stormed several villages. After more than five months of the strike they forced the occupation entity to respond to the demands of the people and to retreat from its racist plans to impose “Israeli citizenship” on the people of the Golan. It’s noteworthy that the United Nations and many free countries in the world also confirmed that the Israeli Knesset decision to annex the Golan is null and has no legal effect and that the Golan is a Syrian land.

Despite repression, arrests, harassment and unfair practices over 54 years of occupation, the people of the Golan continued to oppose all its plans, including the so-called “local council elections,”. In October 2018 they burned Zionist electoral cards in front of the heavily armed occupation soldiers, expressing their strong rejection of holding elections in the villages of the Golan. They categorically rejected the settlement plan to establish “wind turbines” in a number of locations surrounding the villages of Majdal Shams, Ain Qiniya, Baqata and Masada, which aims at seizing their lands and displacing their locals .

On the ninth of last December, our people in the Golan announced a comprehensive strike that included all life facilities to prevent the Israeli occupation from implementing its expansion plan to establish “wind turbines” on their lands. They started from early morning hours- a gathering between the occupied villages of Majdal Shams and Masada and they split into groups that spread in the lands where the Israelis were  planning to  install turbines . The Israeli occupation forces closed a number of main entrances to the villages of the occupied Syrian Golan and prevented the people from reaching their agricultural lands in the areas where the occupation intends to set up turbines on it.

The people of the occupied Golan expressed their steadfastness and adherence to their rights and lands through demonstrations, protests and public anger in the villages of Majdal Shams, Baqatha, Masada and Ein Qiniya despite the occupation forces’ assault on the people with bullets and tear gas. Their struggle forced the occupation to surrender to their demands not to enter the lands of the occupied town of Shaita again to establish wind turbines and to successively release the detainees who participated in confronting the scheme of the wind turbine on their lands.

Today, on the 39th anniversary of the comprehensive strike, our people in the occupied Syrian Golan affirm their determination to  thwart all occupation schemes against the Golan in terms of its land, history and residents. No matter how much the occupation carried out practices, procedures and rejected decisions, our people in the Golan will remain affirming their firm position that the occupied Golan is an integral part of Syrian land and their commitment to  the Syrian identity. 

Inas Abdulkareem