Ban appoints new head of UN force in occupied Golan Heights

Major General Iqbal Singh Singha’s appointment has come only 1 week after the UN Security council’s agreement to extend its mandate to supervise the area between the occupied Golan Heights and Syria.

However, questions remain as to the effectiveness of the UN against Israel’s occupation of the Golan, as the Israeli forces continue to neglect international law.

Following the killing at the hands of Israel of about 27 Syrians who attempted to cross the border to their homeland in 2011, we enquired as to how effective the UN monitoring is and what they expect to see from the new appointed head.

The Syrian Golan territory remains under Israeli occupation and tension between the local community and Israel is heightening over this occupied land.

During the Palestinian National Authority, Palestinian Authority caretaker Prime Minister Salam Fayyad’s address to the UN in 2011, he stated that a deal for the two state solutions can only be reached if Israel puts an end to their violations of international law and furthermore accepts the pre-1967 lines as the borders for a Palestinian state. This would recognize east Jerusalem/ al-Quds as the capital of Palestine and return the Occupied Golan Heights to Syria.

With Israel's continuous disregard of international law, Occupied Golan people are laying hopes in the new UN Chief Commander to enforce and protect their basic human rights.