SHOCKING: Syria drops Golan Heights from map, recognizes Israeli control

After decades of refusing any recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, Damascus has finally updated its map of the country, placing the strategic plateau on the Israeli side of the border.

By David Rosenberg, World Israel News

The government of Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa has apparently given de facto recognition to Israeli control and sovereignty over the Golan Heights, dropping the strategic plateau from an updated state map of Syria.

Syria lost the nearly 700-square-mile Golan to Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War.

Six years later, during the Yom Kippur War, Syrian forces briefly occupied part of the Golan before the IDF recaptured the plateau and advanced on Damascus.

While Israel applied sovereignty over most of the Golan Heights in 1981, with the US recognizing the move during the first Trump administration, Syria has for decades rejected Israel’s annexation and demanded the Golan be ceded as part of a future peace deal.

Last Friday, however, the Syrian government released a new map of the country, redrawing its own borders to reflect the loss of the Golan.

Map posted by the Syrian Foreign Ministry on December 19, 2025, following the US repeal of the Caeser Act. (X)

In a post celebrating the repeal by the US Congress of the Caesar Act, which tightened sanctions on Syria, the Syrian Foreign Ministry shared a visual of the updated map of Syria and the Syrian flag, under the caption “Syria free from Caesar sanctions.”

The new map appears to remove not only the two-thirds of the Golan retained by Israel under the 1974 separation of forces deal with Syria and annexed in 1981, but also the additional roughly 100 square miles in the former demilitarized zone occupied by Israeli forces since last December.

The Al Thawra Al Souria newspaper, a mouthpiece of the Syrian government, has also begun using the new state map.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), an anti-Assad, London-based Syrian nationalist outlet hostile to Israel, castigated the al-Sharaa government over the move, calling it “full submission to US dictates and the fulfillment of all Israeli demands.”

“These maps used by the caretaker government, particularly by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates, are identical to the maps currently used by the Israeli government and various Israeli media outlets.”

Golan HeightsSyriaSyria-Israel relations