Residents of a Syrian village near the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights say Israeli forces have set up a position in an abandoned army base and are preventing local farmers from accessing their fields.

The United Nations Security Council on Friday extended a long-running peacekeeping mission between Syria and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights for six months and expressed concern that military activities in the area could escalate tensions.

Israel announced plans to double its population in the occupied Golan Heights, earning international condemnation.

More than four decades later, the entire international community - bar the US and Israel - considers the Golan Heights to be Syrian territory under Israeli occupation. In 2019, the US recognised the Golan Heights as Israeli sovereign territory during Donald Trump’s first term – becoming the only state to do so.

Israel's "demographic development" plan to increase settler numbers only applies to the area of the Golan Heights that Israel seized during the Six Day War in 1967 and later annexed in 1981 and not to territory taken since al-Assad's ouster.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Tuesday that Israeli forces will stay in a buffer zone on the Syrian border, seized after the ouster of Syrian President Bashar Assad, until another arrangement is in place “that ensures Israel’s security.

Defense Minister Katz joins Prime Minister Netanyahu on a trip to the strategic Mt. Hermon peak in Syria..

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday that Israeli forces will stay in a buffer zone on the Syrian border, and specifically on the summit of Mount Hermon,