Israeli settler group calls for seizing crops in occupied Syrian land
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Alex MacDonald
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Wed, 07/01/2026 - 10:15
Capture of territory in Quneitra and Daraa has prompted settler calls for exploitation of Syrian land
United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) forces patrolling in the village of Abidin in Syria's southwestern Daraa province on 29 June (AFP)
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An Israeli settler group has called for the cultivation and sale of crops from occupied Syrian land.
The Pioneers of Bashan, a group that advocates Israeli settlement in Syria, called for the exploitation of territory captured by Israel in the governorates of Daraa and Quneitra.
"In the small Quneitra District alone, about 2,000 tons of wheat were harvested this year!" the group said on X, referring to crop yeild.
"When this fertile land is worked by pioneering Jews, instead of Hamas-supporting Sunnis, it will yield even more."
The Pioneers of Bashan were founded in April 2025, a few months after the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad's government in December 2024.
Assad's fall at the hands of armed opposition groups led by current President Ahmed al-Sharaa prompted Israel to expand its occupation of Syrian territory.
Israel has controlled the Golan Heights since the 1967 war.
Biblical justification
Settler groups like the the Pioneers of Bashan have advocated the settlement of further Syrian territory, often citing Biblical texts as justification.
On Sunday, Israeli forces pushed into the village of Abidin in Daraa, even as residents trying to block the road with stones to stop them.
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Israeli forces later responded with artillery fire, prompting residents to flee to nearby villages overnight, according to state media.
Syria's foreign ministry in a statement condemned "the Israeli attacks represented by incursions into Syrian territory in Quneitra and Daraa provinces and the targeting of the region with artillery shelling...a blatant violation of Syrian sovereignty and territorial integrity".
Israeli officials have in recent weeks been increasingly playing up the prospect of war with Syria, claiming the country could become a haven for anti-Israel groups otherwise.
In a series of radio interviews given last week, Minister of Diaspora Affairs Amichai Chikli outlined what he dubbed a "radical Sunni axis of evil" in the Middle East.
“There is no way that a jihadist regime rooted in Isis and al-Qaeda, whose aspiration is the unification of Jerusalem, can live in peace alongside the State of Israel,” the far-right minister said, referring to Sharaa’s government.
Speaking to Israel’s Army Radio on Thursday, Chikli outlined what he considers to be a new anti-Israel alliance made up of Pakistan, Turkey and Qatar, which he said worried him far more than Iran and its ceasefire deal with the US.
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