Damascus accused Israel on Monday of building a dam on the Golan Heights to steal water and deprive Syria and Jordan from badly needed resources, Syria's official news agency reported.
Irssan Irssan, head of the water resources department at the town of Quneitra just across the border from the Golan Heights, said Israel started building the dam in July only 10m away from the ceasefire line delineated by a UN peacekeeping force in the area.
"The dam will divert rain water from the Golan Heights and will deprive Syrian farmers and shepherds from the most important resources for their farms and their animals," Irssan said.
A senior Israeli official denied Syria's allegations, saying Israel does not have any dams.
"We are not a country that has enough water to have dams," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.
Israel, however, does have water reservoirs on its streams and creeks to develop agriculture, just as Syria does on its side of the border. The official said the majority of the Golan's water sources flow to the Jordan River and not to Syria.
Quneitra, which lies 65km southwest of Damascus, is a war-wrecked, abandoned town that was destroyed and seized by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war. It was returned by Israel to Syria as part of a negotiated disengagement after the 1973 Middle East war.
Syrian Arab news agency quoted Irssan as saying that the dam Israel was building was 1km long and 8m high and was being built in the no-man zone of the Golan Heights.
Water from the Golan Heights feeds the Yarmouk River and Wihada reservoir, shared by both Jordan and Syria. The two countries use the reservoir to generate some 18,000 megawatts of electricity.
Irssan said the dam constitutes "a threat" to Quneitra and surrounding areas that are rich with water because of the high rate of rainfall in the winter months.
US-brokered talks between Israel and Syria broke down in 2000.
Indonesia was to sign an agreement to repatriate two British nationals, including a grandmother languishing on death row for drug-related crimes, an Indonesian government source said yesterday. “The practical arrangement will be signed today. The transfer will be done immediately after the technical side of the transfer is agreed,” the source said, identifying Lindsay Sandiford and 35-year-old Shahab Shahabadi as the people being transferred. Sandiford, a grandmother, was sentenced to death on the island of Bali in 2013 after she was convicted of trafficking drugs. Customs officers found cocaine worth an estimated US$2.14 million hidden in a false bottom in Sandiford’s suitcase when
CAUSE UNKNOWN: Weather and runway conditions were suitable for flight operations at the time of the accident, and no distress signal was sent, authorities said A cargo aircraft skidded off the runway into the sea at Hong Kong International Airport early yesterday, killing two ground crew in a patrol car, in one of the worst accidents in the airport’s 27-year history. The incident occurred at about 3:50am, when the plane is suspected to have lost control upon landing, veering off the runway and crashing through a fence, the Airport Authority Hong Kong said. The jet hit a security patrol car on the perimeter road outside the runway zone, which then fell into the water, it said in a statement. The four crew members on the plane, which
Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and its junior partner yesterday signed a coalition deal, paving the way for Sanae Takaichi to become the nation’s first female prime minister. The 11th-hour agreement with the Japan Innovation Party (JIP) came just a day before the lower house was due to vote on Takaichi’s appointment as the fifth prime minister in as many years. If she wins, she will take office the same day. “I’m very much looking forward to working with you on efforts to make Japan’s economy stronger, and to reshape Japan as a country that can be responsible for future generations,”
SEVEN-MINUTE HEIST: The masked thieves stole nine pieces of 19th-century jewelry, including a crown, which they dropped and damaged as they made their escape The hunt was on yesterday for the band of thieves who stole eight priceless royal pieces of jewelry from the Louvre Museum in the heart of Paris in broad daylight. Officials said a team of 60 investigators was working on the theory that the raid was planned and executed by an organized crime group. The heist reignited a row over a lack of security in France’s museums, with French Minister of Justice yesterday admitting to security flaws in protecting the Louvre. “What is certain is that we have failed, since people were able to park a furniture hoist in the middle of
RSS