Israel blows up 40-year-old minefield in occupied Golan
The Israeli army announced that it had detonated about 700 landmines in the occupied Syrian Golan.
The Israeli Ministry of War said on its account on the "X" platform, that the Demining Authority is carrying out minefield clearance operations in the Golan Heights area, as part of a program that extends for several years.
According to the Jerusalem Post, over the past year, the agency has been able to clear more than 6,700 dunams of land filled with mines and unexploded ordnance "inside Israel."
The ministry pointed out that these operations aim to allow the use of land for civil, commercial and industrial purposes, without specifying an exact date for the latest bombing, and the Ministry of War published video clips showing the preparation of military engineering teams for explosives before carrying out the explosion.
Ain Ziwan minefield 2 km from the liberated Quneitra
Local sources in the occupied town of Majdal Shams told "Syrian News" that the last 700 mines that the Israeli Ministry of War talked about were carried out in a decades-old minefield in the area of "Ain Ziwan", 2 km south of the demolished city of Quneitra, noting that the area of the field, which covers an area of about 370 dunums and extends between Tel Abu al-Nada and Tel Ein Ziwan.
The sources warned that the explosion of the Ain Ziwan minefield appears to be a preliminary step to change the border reality by expanding Israeli activity eastward towards the borders of the ceasefire line in parallel with its establishment of military bases, the opening of new roads and the implementation of repeated incursions into the liberated countryside of Quneitra.
The sources explained that all the data on the ground prove that Israel is moving towards redrawing the lines of contact in practice, through gradual steps starting from military engineering and ending with the redefinition of the boundaries of actual control on the ground.
Israeli settlement projects in the occupied Golan
On April 16 , the Israeli occupation government approved a five-year plan worth one billion shekels, equivalent to about $334 million, with the aim of transforming the settlement of "Katzrin" into the first Israeli city in the occupied Syrian Golan, by building thousands of new housing units and expanding infrastructure and services.
Israeli sources said that the plan includes bringing in about 3,000 new families through the development of the education and health sectors, including the establishment of a university branch and a veterinary hospital, as part of the policy of attracting settlers and strengthening the "Israeli demographic bloc" in the area, as they described it, adding that the plan includes The establishment of two new settlements with temporary names, Asif and Matar, with a total of up to 12,000 housing units, exposes Israel's intentions to increase the number of settlers in an unprecedented way since the occupation of the Golan.
In an unprecedented development, the town of Hadar witnessed, on Wednesday, April 22, an incident of border breach by dozens of Israeli settlers who infiltrated into the town and climbed onto the roofs of houses waving the Israeli flag, and despite the symbolic nature of the operation, it reflects, according to local sources, the expansionist ambitions of settler groups seeking to transfer their activity from inside the occupied Golan to the depths of the liberated Syrian territories.
Suva Road 53
About 6 months before the fall of the former regime, the Israeli occupation forces established trenches and earthen berms along the barbed wire from north to south of the western side, within the buffer zone, with the aim of establishing a military road that would serve their movements in the area.
The project is part of a military expansion along the border strip with the occupied Golan, and aims to facilitate the movement of military vehicles within Syrian territory near the border.
Work on the road began in mid-2022, with the entry of an Israeli military force into Syrian territory, including 6 Merkava tanks and two military bulldozers, accompanied by a number of soldiers to monitor the border and vehicles, according to local correspondents in Quneitra governorate.
The depth of work inside Syrian territory is at least about 100 meters, while in some areas it reaches a depth of one kilometer, where bulldozers are paving the road and bulldozing land along the route.