Since the 2024 collapse of the Assad government and the subsequent expansion of Israel’s occupation of the Golan Heights beyond the 1974 ceasefire line into southern Syria, a number of right-wing groups have advocated the establishment of Jewish settlements on this land.
Among the most prominent is Halutzei HaBashan (“Pioneers of Bashan”), a movement launched last year by settlers from the occupied West Bank. Taking advantage of the Israeli military’s incursions, they have been calling for the construction of Israeli settlements in southwestern Syria, an area they call the Bashan region, which they view as part of the historic “Land of Israel”.
In addition to organising marches into Syrian territory and attempting to establish new facts on the ground, the group has demanded protection from Israeli occupation forces, despite occasional clashes.
The first documented incursion by settlers from Halutzei HaBashan occurred in August 2025, when they announced the establishment of Neveh HaBashan (“Oasis of Bashan”) - even laying a foundation stone in the Quneitra countryside. Israeli soldiers ultimately intervened and removed the group’s members.
Human Rights Glance
Israeli forces deliberately targeted Palestinian children as a central element of their genocide in Gaza, the UN's top investigative body on Palestine and Israel concluded this week.
The US supreme court on Thursday ruled in favor of the Trump administration’s bid to strip temporary protected status (TPS) from hundreds of thousands of Haitians and Syrians, who were legally in the US and protected from deportation.
Senior Israeli security officials met on Tuesday to discuss the possibility of expelling Palestinians from the Gaza Strip, despite repeated previous failures to advance such plans, according to Haaretz.
A Palestinian citizen of Israel held by the internal security agency, Shin Bet, has died in hospital after being found unconscious in his cell, with his family and lawyers saying they found severe bruising on his body.
Palestinian children are "increasingly unprotected", as Israel forces human rights organisations to cease or curtail work across the occupied Palestinian territories, the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child warned on Monday. 





























