Despite warnings that the move violates international law, Israel is moving forward with its plans to drill for oil in the occupied Golan Heights. Last year Afek, an Israeli subsidiary of the US firm Genie Energy, announced it had discovered its first and huge reservoir of oil under Syria’s Golan, enough they said to supply all of Israel’s energy needs for many years to come. In February Israeli authorities granted the company the go-ahead to conduct more drilling. Electronic Intifada reports: In response, Palestinian legal rights group Adalah and Al-Marsad, the Arab Human Rights Center in the Golan Heights, wrote to Yuval Steinitz, Israel’s infrastructure minister, demanding that the drilling permits be withdrawn. In the letter, attorneys Suhad Bishara and Karama Abu Saleh reminded Steinitz that international law requires that residents of the Golan be able to control and benefit from the land’s resources. Population expelled In 1967, Israel occupied Syria’s Golan Heights, expelling most of the Syrian population. Approximately 130,000 Syrians were driven out and most of the Golan’s 200 villages destroyed, according to a 2010 investigation by the Tel Aviv newspaper Haaretz. Today, 22,000 Syrians belonging to the Druze minority community remain amid a similar number of Jewish settlers. [...]