A/HRC/43/69 Arab territories, 1 detailed a number of discriminatory policies that Israel continued to implement, including preferential policies that facilitate the acquisition of land and water by Israeli settlers, most notably through tax incentives and aid. It remained difficult for Syrians to obtain building permits as Israel was imposing a new system for land registration, creating obstacles for Syrians to prove ownership of their lands and thus providing a pretext for Israel to seize those lands. The Syrian Arab Republic pointed out that the Director General of ILO had expressed concern about the fact that Israel had plans to build wind turbines on a large scale on lands owned by Syrians and that that would significantly restrict the expansion of Syrian villages. Moreover, the Director General of ILO had highlighted the continued attempts by Israel to integrate the occupied Syrian Golan administratively and politically. In his conclusion, the Director General of ILO had noted the continued and general deterioration in the labour conditions in the Arab occupied territories, including the occupied Syrian Golan, and the fact that Syrians had been facing deprivation for over 50 years and continued to face discrimination by the Israeli occupation authorities. 14. The Syrian Arab Republic stated that the Israeli occupation authorities had attempted to impose their illegal decision to hold local council elections in the occupied Syrian Golan on 30 October 2018 in order to legitimize the occupation and impose their laws in that territory. The population in the Golan had undermined those attempts by refusing to vote or participate in the elections despite pressure from the Israeli occupation authorities. 15. The Syrian Arab Republic noted that Israel had granted an Israeli company permits to construct 45 air turbines to produce energy on lands owned by Syrian farmers, as part of its policy to uproot Syrians and seize their lands. That had been done after the Israeli occupation authorities had imposed a land survey on lands owned by people who did not have ownership documents. The Syrian Arab Republic considered that the aim of that policy was to pressure the inhabitants of Syrian villages to accept documents issued by the so-called “Israeli land registration office” instead of their original land registration documents issued in their motherland (the Syrian Arab Republic). It added that, ultimately, such practices were intended to facilitate the confiscation of those lands by imposing alternative “Israeli documents”. The Syrian Arab Republic declared that, in that context, it was important to refer to calls by the Israeli occupation authorities to the population of the occupied Syrian Golan, specifically those living in Ain Qanieh and the industrial area belonging to the village of Majdal Shams, to hand in their original land ownership documents, which had been inherited from their forefathers. It was noted that that procedure was expected to affect a number of other villages in the occupied Syrian Golan and that the Israeli occupation authorities had threatened to confiscate lands from their actual owners and to transfer them to Israeli settlers if the inhabitants of the occupied Syrian Golan did not accept the new Israeli documents. 16. The Syrian Arab Republic added that the new energy-producing wind turbines would be built on a surface totalling 100,000 dunums 2 of arable land belonging to Syrians living in villages in the vicinity. It stressed that planning for that project continued despite large-scale demonstrations by the population of the occupied Syrian Golan rejecting it and the negative impact it would have on them by restricting their urban expansion and confining them to smaller and more densely populated areas. The Syrian Arab Republic added that the project would cause significant harm to the environment, creating health hazards and damage to arable land. It noted that, more recently, the Israeli electricity company had expanded a high-voltage electrical grid to use and produce electrical energy from the wind turbines it planned to build around the Israeli settlement of Kitsarine. 17. The Syrian Arab Republic noted that the Israeli occupation authorities had, in their attempts to legitimize their occupation of the occupied Syrian Golan, approved a multi-year project to develop agriculture projects in the 33 existing Israeli settlements with the aim of 1 2 4 See www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---ed_norm/---relconf/documents/meetingdocument/ wcms_705016.pdf. One dunum is equivalent to 1,000 square metres.