Against the backdrop of the wars in Gaza and Lebanon, the fall of the Assad regime, and the tragic death of 12 Druze children in Majdal Shams in a Hezbollah rocket attack, the number of Druze residents applying for Israeli citizenship in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights might be a reflection of local sentiment — and perhaps also of attitudes on the nearby Syrian side of the volatile border.

Data obtained by Shomrim reveals that the number of citizenship applications in the Israeli Golan Heights remains at a historic high. Over 20 percent of Golan Druze hold Israeli citizenship, more than double than at the turn of the millennium.

The statistics were obtained from the Population and Immigration Authority thanks to a request filed through the Movement for Freedom of Information, an Israeli NGO that works to promote governmental transparency.

Israel captured much of the Golan Heights in the 1967 Six Day War; the post-war borders zig-zagged between Druze villages, cutting families and communities off from one another. When Israel annexed the Golan Heights in 1981, it offered all residents Israeli citizenship, though only a small minority took it up. Recently, though, that number has grown.

Druze naturalizations peaked in 2022, when 438 citizenship requests were submitted, of which 419 were approved. In 2023, applications dipped slightly to 406, of which 389 were granted, and in the first 11 months of 2024, there were 352 requests, of which 318 were approved. Assuming the trend continued through the end of the year, 2024 likely ended with a similar number of requests as 2023.

Looking at the broader picture, over the past three years (2022-2024), Israel approved 1,126 citizenship requests from Druze in the Israeli Golan Heights, compared to just 539 in the five-year period between 2017 and 2021.

Based on data from the Population and Immigration Authority, approximately 6,000 of the over 29,000 Druze residents in the Golan Heights — about 20.45% — currently hold Israeli citizenship. Compared to 2022, this is an increase of around 3.6% of the total Druze community in the area. Part of this increase is the result of more applications being submitted and part is the result of couples with Israeli citizenship having children.

While applying for Israeli........

© The Times of Israel