Israel pauses wind turbine project in occupied Golan Heights after protests

Israel has reportedly postponed works for a controversial wind turbine farm in the occupied Golan Heights, after weeks of local protest.

Work on the project, which will see more than 1,000 acres of land confiscated from local farmers, was postponed for a month, Israeli news sites reported.

The project was being reviewed, local activist Emile Masoud told The New Arab’s Arabic-language sister site Al-Araby Al-Jadeed, adding that "public pressure" was the reason for the postponement.

Protests erupted in the occupied Golan Heights a fortnight ago as Israeli soldiers and police moved into the area to be impacted by the project. Israeli police fired rubber bullets and tear gas at protesters, injuring dozens.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pressed pause on the works at the request of the spiritual leader of the Druze ethnoreligious community, Sheikh Muwafaq Tarif.

Other senior Israeli political figures, including National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, urged that the project push ahead.

Work on the turbine project was meant to restart on Sunday, after the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha, but the resumption did not take place.

EnergyX, the company carrying out the construction, said work had not resumed because it was conditioned on the arrival of police security, Haaretz reported on Sunday.

But police did not send reinforcements to Golan, claiming that they were preparing for demonstrations expected on Monday at Ben-Gurion International Airport over the government’s push to overhaul the judiciary, the Israeli news outlet said.

Israel captured the Golan Heights region of Syria in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. It illegally annexed the area in 1981, in a move not recognised by most of the international community.

While its residents can claim Israeli citizenship and are subject to Israeli civil law, many decided not to. However, some have decided to become Israeli nationals since the war erupted in Syria in 2011.

Israel has constructed a series of settlements in the region to further tighten its control there.

The UN said last month that for the first time ever, Jewish Israeli settlers were outnumbering native Syrians living in the Golan Heights.

Only four out of the original 163 towns and villages present in the Golan before 1967 remain today: Majdal Shams, Mas’ade, Ein Qiniyye and Buq’ata, all of which are Druze majority.