Passport woes: Arab residents of Golan Heights reject Israeli citizenship

Residents of the Golan Heights protest against the 1981 Israeli annexation law of the strategic plateau. (AFP/File)
Short Url
Updated 22 January 2023
Follow

Passport woes: Arab residents of Golan Heights reject Israeli citizenship

  • Egyptian step to end travel requirement raises hopes of similar moves across Arab world

RAMALLAH: Residents of the occupied Syrian Golan Heights have called on Arab states and the international community to drop Israeli citizenship requirements for travel.

Israel annexed the Golan Heights in 1981 in a move that was condemned internationally.

The 30,000 residents of the Golan Heights bear Israeli identity cards similar to those held by citizens of East Jerusalem, where their status is described as residents and non-citizens.

Ayman Abu Jabal, one of the prominent leaders of the Golan community, told Arab News: “The lack of a passport for the residents makes them live in a cultural, political, social and economic siege, separating them from their Arab depth.”

Egypt recently agreed to a request from the Syrian Golan Heights community to end the need for Israeli citizenship to visit the country.

Young people in the community are seeking to work in Arab countries in light of poor economic conditions in the Golan Heights, a community statement said.

But the requirement to hold Israeli citizenship prevents many from relocating abroad, the statement added.

After canceling the Israeli citizenship requirement, Egypt also condemned the occupation of the Golan Heights and praised the adherence of the area’s occupants to their Syrian Arab identity.

Egypt said it would welcome visitors from the Golan Heights with transit documents and visas.

Abu Jabal from the Golan community praised the Egyptian move, describing it as “strengthening the position of the people of the Golan that they live in an occupied land.”

He added: “Unfortunately, a large portion of the people of the Golan were forced to obtain Israeli citizenship to complete their education or to move around in countries of the world that do not recognize the Israeli document granted to them.”

Israeli authorities have exploited the situation to force Golan Heights residents to seek Israeli citizenship, he warned.

Egyptian authorities informed Golan Heights residents that they could visit Taba and Sharm El-Sheikh without visas.

The move has raised hopes that other Arab countries will follow suit and end the Israeli citizenship requirement for residents of the Golan Heights.

Community leaders are also working with the Syrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs to encourage similar moves by Arab countries.

“We demand the Syrian national state redouble its efforts in communicating with the countries of the world to remove this condition for visiting by the residents of the occupied Syrian Golan,” said a community statement.

“At the same time, we turn to our young men and women in the occupied Syrian Golan Heights not to fall into the trap of temptations to visit this or that country, with the price being to obtain Israeli citizenship.

“With patience and a little steadfastness, we can bypass and remove those conditions for visiting those countries,” the statement added.

Meanwhile, in a previous conversation with Arab News, farming community leaders in the Golan Heights complained about the refusal of several Arab countries to import apples due to administrative concerns.

In contrast, apples produced in the Israeli settlements of the Golan Heights have been exported.

Successive Israeli governments have sought to increase the number of Israeli settlers living in 32 settlements across the occupied Golan Heights.

About 30,000 Arabs from the occupied Syrian Golan live in major villages: Majdal Shams, Bqatha, Masada and Ein Qinya and Ghajar, which is close to the Shebaa Farms.

Former US President Donald Trump officially recognized Israel's sovereignty over the Golan Heights in March 2019 in a move that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised as “historic.”

Syria has long insisted that it will refuse a peace agreement with Israel unless it withdraws from the Golan Heights.

The last direct peace talks sponsored by the US collapsed in 2000, while Turkiye mediated indirect talks in 2008.


Israel military says three projectiles fired from north Gaza

Updated 7 sec ago
Follow

Israel military says three projectiles fired from north Gaza

JERUSALEM: The Israeli military said it identified three projectiles fired from the northern Gaza Strip that crossed into Israel on Monday, the latest in a series of launches from the war-ravaged Palestinian territory.
“One projectile was intercepted by the IAF (air force), one fell in Sderot and another projectile fell in an open area. No injuries were reported,” the military said in a statement.

Sudan army air strike kills 10 in southern Khartoum: rescuers

Updated 35 min 46 sec ago
Follow

Sudan army air strike kills 10 in southern Khartoum: rescuers

  • Strike targeted a market area of the capital’s Southern Belt ‘for the third time in less than a month’
  • War between Sudan’s regular army and the paramilitary forces has killed tens of thousands of people

PORT SUDAN, Sudan: Ten Sudanese civilians were killed and over 30 wounded in an army air strike on southern Khartoum, volunteer rescue workers said.
The strike on Sunday targeted a market area of the capital’s Southern Belt “for the third time in less than a month,” said the local Emergency Response Room (ERR), part of a network of volunteers across the country coordinating frontline aid.
The group said those killed burned to death. The wounded, suffering from burns, were taken to the local Bashair Hospital, with five of them in a critical condition.
Since April 2023, the war between Sudan’s regular army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has killed tens of thousands of people.
In the capital alone, the violence killed 26,000 people between April 2023 and June 2024, according to a report by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
Khartoum has experienced some of the war’s worst violence, with entire neighborhoods emptied out and taken over by fighters.
The military, which maintains a monopoly on the skies with its jets, has not managed to wrest back control of the capital from the paramilitary.
Of the 11.5 million people currently displaced within Sudan, nearly a third have fled from the capital, according to United Nations figures.
Both the RSF and the army have been repeatedly accused of targeting civilians and indiscriminately shelling residential areas.


Israel says Hamas has not given ‘status of hostages’ it says ready to free

Updated 06 January 2025
Follow

Israel says Hamas has not given ‘status of hostages’ it says ready to free

  • A Hamas official gave a list of 34 hostages the group was ready to free

JERUSALEM: Israel said on Monday that Hamas had so far not provided the status of the 34 hostages the group declared it was ready to release in the first phase of a potential exchange deal.
“As yet, Israel has not received any confirmation or comment by Hamas regarding the status of the hostages appearing on the list,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said in a statement after a Hamas official gave a list of 34 hostages the group was ready to free in the first phase.


Shooting attack on a bus carrying Israelis in the occupied West Bank kills 3

Updated 06 January 2025
Follow

Shooting attack on a bus carrying Israelis in the occupied West Bank kills 3

  • The attack occurred in the Palestinian village of Al-Funduq, on one of the main east-west roads crossing the territory

JERUSALEM: A shooting attack on a bus carrying Israelis in the occupied West Bank killed at least three people and wounded seven others on Monday, Israeli medics said.
Israel’s Magen David Adom rescue service said those killed included two women in their 60s and a man in his 40s.
Violence has surged in the West Bank since Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 attack out of Gaza ignited the ongoing war there.
The attack occurred in the Palestinian village of Al-Funduq, on one of the main east-west roads crossing the territory. The identities of the attackers and those killed were not immediately known. The military said it was looking for the attackers, who fled.
Palestinians have carried out scores of shooting, stabbing and car-ramming attacks against Israelis in recent years. Israel has launched near-nightly military raids across the territory that frequently trigger gunbattle with militants.
The Palestinian Health Ministry says at least 835 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire in the West Bank since the start of the war in Gaza.
Israel captured the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem in the 1967 Mideast war, and the Palestinians want all three territories for their future state.
Some 3 million Palestinians live in the West Bank under seemingly open-ended Israeli military rule, with the internationally recognized Palestinian Authority administering population centers. Over 500,000 Israeli settlers live in scores of settlements, which most of the international community considers illegal.
Meanwhile, the war in Gaza is raging with no end in sight, though there has reportedly been recent progress in long-running talks aimed at a ceasefire and hostage release.
The war began when Hamas-led militants stormed across the border in a massive surprise attack nearly 15 months ago, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting around 250. Some 100 hostages are still inside Gaza, at least a third of whom are believed to be dead.
Israel’s air and ground offensive has killed over 45,800 Palestinians in Gaza, according to local health authorities, who say women and children make up more than half of those killed. They do not say how many of the dead were militants. The Israeli military says it has killed over 17,000 fighters, without providing evidence.
The war has destroyed vast areas of Gaza and displaced 90 percent of the territory’s population of 2.3 million, often multiple times. Hundreds of thousands are enduring a cold, rainy winter in tent camps along the windy coast. At least seven infants have died of hypothermia because of the harsh conditions, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.
Aid groups say Israeli restrictions, ongoing fighting and the breakdown of law and order in many areas make it difficult to provide desperately needed food and other assistance.


New Syria foreign minister begins first visit to UAE: state media

Updated 06 January 2025
Follow

New Syria foreign minister begins first visit to UAE: state media

Damascus: Syria’s new foreign minister Asaad Al-Shaibani landed in the United Arab Emirates Monday on his first visit to the country since rebels toppled president Bashar Assad last month, official news agency SANA said.
“Shaibani, accompanied by defense minister Murhaf Abu Qasra and intelligence chief Anas Khattab, has arrived in the United Arab Emirates,” SANA reported.
Shaibani also posted a picture of himself on X stepping off a plane, and said he looked forward “to building constructive bilateral relations.”
The officials took office after Islamist-led rebels swept into Damascus in early December, toppling Assad after more than 13 years of civil war.
Their trip to the UAE comes after they visited its Gulf neighbors Qatar on Sunday and Saudi Arabia last week.
Both Qatar and Turkiye, which backed the anti-Assad opposition, reopened their embassies in Damascus in the aftermath of Assad’s flight to Moscow.
Turkiye has long maintained a working relationship with the HTS rebels, leaving it with a direct line to Damascus.