LONDON: Western governments should suspend trade with Israel after it approved plans to expand settlements in the Golan Heights and West Bank, Human Rights Watch has said.
The Israeli government signed off on a $334 million plan on April 17 to help relocate thousands of citizens to the Golan Heights, in what HRW said amounted to a “statement of intent to commit war crimes.”
HRW said Western countries should focus on limiting trade and business done with Israeli entities based in the Occupied Territories, suspend arms deals with Israel, and where possible open criminal investigations into Israelis involved in settlement expansion plans.
The government’s decision will see the Katzrin settlement, established in 1977, expanded by 3,000 families by 2030, making it the “first city” in the occupied Golan Heights, which Israel took from Syria in 1967.
Settlement expansion has also continued in the West Bank after the government approved 34 new settlements in April, bringing the total number of approved new sites since the government took office in 2022 to 102.
According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, displacement of Palestinians in the West Bank now accounts for 75 percent of all civilian displacement reported globally so far in 2026.
Hiba Zayadin, senior Syria researcher at HRW, said: “Israel’s Cabinet has put public money behind a war crime in Syria at the same time as it is turbocharging settlement expansion in the West Bank alongside continued impunity for violence against Palestinians there.
“A permanent population transfer into Syrian territory violates international norms with grave implications for long-displaced Syrians.”
The Golan Heights are classified as occupied territory in international law, and displaced Syrian families have been forbidden from returning to their homes by Israel.
The US is the only country that recognizes Israeli authority over the area, which became subject to Israeli law in 1981.
The UN declared the annexation null and void with Security Council Resolution 497, most recently reinforced by the General Assembly in 2025.
The Fourth Geneva Convention states that the transfer of a civilian population by an occupying power to an occupied territory is a war crime.
Last June, the EU found that Israel was in violation of the EU-Israel Association Agreement over allegations that the latter failed to respect human rights in a number of areas, including its treatment of civilians in Gaza.
A proposal was made by the European Commission to suspend trade provisions but that has not yet come to fruition. Spain is the only EU member state to impose a ban on trade with illegal Israeli settlements.
“The EU has powerful tools at its disposal but refuses to use them,” Zayadin said. “The US denies the reality that the Golan is occupied Syrian territory. Israel’s April 17 plan is the predictable result when an occupying power is confident that its impunity will hold.
“Syrian authorities can change the calculus by taking steps on national justice and joining the ICC (International Criminal Court).”
HRW added that since the April 17 plan was approved, Israel has expanded military operations in southern Syria, occupying territory and establishing what appear to be permanent military positions beyond the 1974 disengagement line, as well as conducting strikes in Quneitra, Deraa and Sweida governorates.
The organization said it has documented numerous human rights violations as a result of the increased military activities, including the forced displacement of Syrians from newly occupied areas, the destruction of their property, the arbitrary detention of some Syrians, and their forced transfer to Israel without charge.
Similar civilian displacement has been reported along the border region between Israel and Lebanon, after the Israeli military restarted ground operations against Hezbollah following the start of the war between Israel, the US and Iran.
