Trump Towers in the Golan? Netanyahu to name settlement in Golan Heights after US president

The Israeli premier did not make clear whether the settlement would be directly named after Donald Trump or would take a moniker, such as "Trump Towers".

Trump signed a proclamation last month recognising Israel's annexation of the Golan Heights - a move which has been denounced as the rest of the international community has never recognised Israel's occupation of the Syrian territory.

"All Israelis were deeply moved when President Trump made his historic decision to recognise Israel's sovereignty over the Golan Heights," Netanyahu said in a statement filmed somewhere in the Golan Heights, which the Israeli premier toured with his family on Tuesday, and published by Israel's Government Press Office (GPO).

"Therefore, over the Passover holiday, I intend to bring to the government a resolution calling for a new community on the Golan Heights named after President Donald Trump."

Israel captured a large swathe of the Syrian Golan Heights in the 1967 war and later officially - but illegally - annexed the area in 1981.

The annexation of the Golan means the territory is not occupied in the same way as Israel occupies the West Bank and Gaza - its residents are able to claim Israeli citizenship and are subject to Israeli civil law.

While successive Israeli governments have encouraged the building of settlements in the occupied Golan Heights, many Syrians who remain, most of whom are Druze, have rejected Israeli citizenship.

Trump's move to recognise Israeli control over the occupied Golan Heights followed a 2017 decision to recognise Jerusalem - both east and west - as the capital of Israel, and move the US embassy to the city.

Netanyahu has also vowed to expand Israeli sovereignty over the West Bank.

In the run up to this month's national elections in which the prime minister was re-elected, he told voters he intended to annex illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank.