NAZARETH, (PIC)
Israeli army radio revealed on Wednesday that the army has established two military sites on the top of the occupied Mount Hermon in southwestern Syria, and that workers from Druze villages will start working in the occupied Golan next Sunday.
Anadolu Agency quoted the radio as saying that one of the sites is a Syrian site that Israeli occupation forces (IOF) found abandoned and are now occupying, noting that there is a force from Nepal at a nearby UN site, “but it does not enter into any friction with the army.”
The Israeli army has been occupying the Syrian Mount Hermon for the past three months. The Hebrew Radio claimed that the area currently occupied by the army was a theater for smuggling weapons from Syria to Hezbollah, especially since the area dominates the entire Syrian-Lebanese border.
The Israeli army maintains a 15-kilometer-wide security strip in some areas in southern Syria, and controls more than 40,000 Syrians inside the occupied Syrian buffer zone, Anadolu Agency added.
The Israeli army radio reported that dozens of Syrians from Druze villages will come to work in the occupied Golan starting next Sunday, and if the matter is successful, the number of workers who will work in agriculture will be increased.
Last Sunday, Israeli Army Minister Yisrael Katz announced that his government will soon allow Druze workers from Syria to work in the settlements of the occupied Golan Heights, under the pretext of strengthening relations with the Druze community.
While the new Syrian administration emphasizes its protection of all sects of the country without discrimination within a single homeland, Israel claims that the Druze in Syria have been subjected to attacks, which Damascus considers a pretext for violating Syrian sovereignty.
There was no official Syrian comment on the Israeli radio report. However, Damascus has repeatedly called for an end to Israeli aggression and withdrawal from Syrian territory.
Since 1967, Israel has occupied most of the Syrian Golan Heights, and took advantage of the events of the ouster of Bashar al-Assad in December 2024 and expanded its occupation, including the Syrian buffer zone, and destroyed vehicles, equipment and ammunition of the Syrian army in hundreds of airstrikes.
