Israel has approved a $334 million plan to expand illegal settlements in the occupied Syrian Golan Heights, in a move that Human Rights Watch (HRW) says amounts to the financing of war crimes under international law.
The plan, adopted by Israel’s cabinet on 17 April 2026, aims to significantly increase the number of Israeli settlers in the territory by developing the existing settlement of Katzrin into what officials describe as the Golan’s “first city”.
“Israel’s cabinet has put public money behind a war crime in Syria at the same time as it is turbocharging settlement expansion in the West Bank alongside continued impunity for violence against Palestinians there,” said Hiba Zayadin, senior Syria researcher at Human Rights Watch. “A permanent population transfer into Syrian territory violates international norms with grave implications for long-displaced Syrians.”
Under international humanitarian law, the transfer of an occupying power’s civilian population into occupied territory is prohibited and constitutes a war crime under Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention.
Israel occupied the Syrian Golan Heights in 1967 and unilaterally imposed its laws on the territory in 1981, a move widely regarded as a de facto annexation. The United Nations Security Council declared this action “null and void” in Resolution 497, affirming that the territory remains occupied under international law.
READ: Israel approves plan to expand settlements in occupied Syrian Golan Heights
Just as Palestinians ethnically cleasned during the Nakba were blocked from returning to their homes, Israel has prevented displaced Syrians from returning, while systematically destroying hundreds of villages and agricultural lands. Those displaced, along with their descendants, now number in the hundreds of thousands.
The new plan comes amid an expansion of Israeli military operations in southern Syria following the fall of Bashar Al-Assad’s government. Human Rights Watch has documented forced displacement, destruction of homes and farmland, and the establishment of military positions designed to prevent the return of Syrian residents.
Analysts say the Golan expansion forms part of a broader pattern of illegal annexation and demographic engineering across the region. In the occupied West Bank, Israel has accelerated settlement expansion at an unprecedented pace, approving dozens of new settlements and increasing their total number dramatically since 2022.
At the same time, Israeli forces have expanded operations into southern Lebanon, displacing hundreds of thousands and signalling that residents may be prevented from returning for an indefinite period.
Human Rights Watch has called on the European Union, the United Kingdom and other states to respond by suspending trade agreements with Israel, banning trade with illegal settlements and halting arms transfers. It also urged prosecutors in third countries to pursue criminal investigations against Israeli officials under universal jurisdiction.
“The EU has powerful tools at its disposal but refuses to use them,” Zayadin said. “Israel’s plan is the predictable result when an occupying power is confident that its impunity will hold.”
The organisation also noted that companies involved in settlement construction or services risk complicity in war crimes, echoing previous findings related to Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank.
READ: Not content with wiping Palestine off the map, Israel has done the same to part of Syria too
