Syria calls on Commission for Human Rights to put pressure on Israeli occupation to halt settlement turbine scheme in occupied Golan

Syria confirmed that the Israeli occupation authorities’ escalation of the work in the scheme to build wind turbines on the occupied Syrian Golan, through the increase in the number of these turbines and the expansion of land seizure operations to set them up, constitutes a grave violation of human rights and international humanitarian law.

Syria’s permanent representative to the United Nations in Geneva, Ambassador Husam El-Din Ala, said in a letter addressed to the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet: that Syria has repeatedly warned of the health and environmental risks of this settlement scheme for the people of the occupied Syrian Golan. This scheme reflects the intransigence of the Israeli occupation in implementing a systematic and relentless discriminatory settlement policy in the occupied Syrian Golan and against its people.

Ambassador Ala referred to the illegal actions involved in the scheme, including confiscation and appropriation of lands, deliberately causing permanent environmental and health damageand the displacement of the people of the targeted areas.

Ambassador Ala clarified that the Israeli occupation authorities’ move to implement this plan despite its catastrophic consequences and its resort to repression and intimidation to achieve this proves once again the policies of the occupation authorities to create facts on the ground with the aim of consolidating their occupation of the Syrian Golan.

Ambassador Ala indicated that the Human Rights Council, in its resolution adopted at its forty-ninth session, entitled “Human Rights in the Occupied Syrian Golan,” expressed its dissatisfaction with the approval of the occupation authorities to start implementing this scheme, despite its harmful impact on the human rights of the Syrian population in the Golan.

Ambassador Ala said that this scheme is being implemented in three phases, the first was the construction of turbines on large areas of the lands of the villages of Ain El-Hajal, Mansoura and Thaljiyat, where about 42 fans were set up with a height of 120 meters. The second phase targeted the area of Tal Al-Faras. The third phase includes the villages of Majdal Shams, Masada, Bekatha, and Ain Qinya, and includes the seizure of more than four thousand dunums of agricultural land, in which about 41 huge fans will be installed.

Ambassador Ala added: Given the size of these turbines, their location, and the area on which they will be built, it can be said that they are the largest and most dangerous in the world, as they will be built on an area of ​​6000 acres, which will result in significant health and environmental damage.

Ambassador Ala added, “The establishment of this scheme in locations near or in the middle of the farms would exacerbate the housing crisis in the occupied villages and target the economic situation of the people of the occupied Syrian Golan by eliminating the agricultural sector. This means forcibly displacing them from their lands and homes in the coming years and violating a wide range of human rights including the right to health, housing, development and other human rights.”

Inas Abdulkareem