TEL AVIV, 27 December 2021, (TON): Israel unveiled a plan to spend more than $300 million to double the Jewish settler population in the Golan Heights, 40 years after it annexed the territory captured from Syria.
Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, who held his weekly cabinet meeting at the Mevo Hama community in the Golan on Sunday, vowed this was the "moment" to boost the number of Jewish Israelis living in the territory.
"Our goal is to double the population in the Golan," the right-wing Bennett said as he presented his one billion shekel ($317 million) programme to improve housing, transportation, tourism and medical facilities in the area.
Around 25,000 Israeli settlers live in the Golan Heights, along with some 23,000 Druze, who remained on the land after it was seized by Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War.
Israel annexed the territory on December 14, 1981, in a move not recognised by most of the international community.
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