Syria Strongly Condemns Israel's Plan to Hold Election in Occupied Golan Heights

Rasa - Damascus categorically condemns Israel's announcement about holding elections of the so-called “local councils” on October 2018 in the villages of the occupied Syrian Golan, the Syrian Foreign Ministry underscored.

News ID: 430884

Date: 09 July 2017 - 23:36

RNA - In letters to the UN Secretary General and the Head of the Security Council, the Ministry said that the Israeli entity has recently issued new resolutions related to holding elections of the so-called local councils in the villages of the occupied Syrian Golan according to Israeli law, stressing the Golan is an integral part of the Syrian territory and that it will return to the motherland sooner or later.

The Ministry pointed out that these Israeli actions come as no surprise because Israel has been investing in the crisis in Syria through its support to the terrorist groups which was clear since the beginning of the events in Syria.

The letters noted that the Syrian citizens of the occupied Golan have rejected in the national document which they had issued on 25/3/1981 any decision issued by the Israeli entity to annex the Golan as well as their rejection of all Israeli decisions aimed at depriving them of their Syrian identity.

The Ministry indicated that the fifth paragraph of the aforementioned document provided that they do not recognize any group of the so-called local councils and that the heads and the members of these councils do not represent them, and that they made an irrevocable decision to reject the imposition of the Israeli identity on them.

The letters went on to say that Israel, which refused to comply with International legitimacy over the past years and rebelled against its decisions to end the occupation of the Syrian Golan, has repeated this rebellion by issuing this new decision.

The Ministry pointed out that the Security Council affirmed in its resolution no. 497 that the Israeli decision to impose its law, authority, and administration in the occupied Syrian Golan is null , void, and without international legal power, adding that the Security Council demanded that Israel annul its decision immediately and declared that all provisions of the Geneva Convention on the Protection of Civilian Persons in the Time of War are still in effect in the Syrian territory occupied by Israel since June 1967.

The letters asserted that the new Israeli decisions constitute another flagrant violation of the UN Charter, international humanitarian law, and the Geneva Convention.

The Ministry went on to say that Syria calls upon the UN Secretary General and the Security Council to condemn these new provocative Israeli measures that blatantly violate the Security Council resolution 497, demanding that the Council force Israel to release Syrian and Palestinian captives from Israeli jails, including Sedqi al-Maqet, who has spent more than 30 years in Israeli jails.

On Monday, the Syrian army forces seized a large volume of Israeli military and medical equipment, while carrying out cleansing operation in the positions seized from the Al-Nusra Front (also known as Fatah al-Sham Front or the Levant Liberation Board) in the Golan Heights in Southern Quneitra.

A military source said that the army soldiers that had repelled repeated attacks of Al-Nusra Front on their positions in Southern Quneitra, carried out a rapid counter-attack and managed to advance against the terrorist group.

The army further seized Israeli supplied medical kits and weapons in the positions of Tahrir al-Sham Hay'at (the Levant Liberation Board) near the town of Hamidiyeh on Sunday, the sources went on to say.

The source further added that the Israeli air and ground forces have been supporting the Takfiri terrorists in the Golan Heights near the city of Al-Ba’ath.

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