France, May 1 -- The five-year project, approved on 17 April, would bring some 3,000 new Israeli families to the territory and expand the Katzrin settlement into what Israeli officials describe as the Golan's "first city" - with housing, infrastructure, public services, university facilities and specialised medical centres.

The move came the same day Syria's new leadership publicly signalled interest in talks over Israeli withdrawal from territory that was occupied beyond the 1974 ceasefire line.

"Israel is violating the 1974 disengagement agreement, and we are working to reach a security agreement that guarantees its withdrawal from the territories it occupied after the fall of the regime and its return to the 1974 lines," Syrian Presi...