Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday announced that a site for a new settlement to be named after the US president Donald Trump in the occupied Golan Heights has been chosen.
“I would like to inform you that we have already selected a site in the Golan Heights where this new community will be established and we have started the process” Netanyahu said via Twitter.
In April Netanyahu revealed his intention to name a new settlement in Golan after Trump to thank him for recognizing Israel’s claim of sovereignty over the Syrian heights.
In March at the White House in the presence of Netanyahu Trump signed a decree under which he recognized Israel’s sovereignty over the Syrian territory a move that sparked widespread international condemnation.
Israel occupied two thirds of Golan Heights during the 1967 war and announced its annexation in 1981 which was rejected by the international community and the United Nations Security Council through Resolution 497.
In an attempt to entrench the annexation move the Israeli government in April 2018 held its first official meeting in the Syrian Golan since its occupation in 1967.
