OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, June 22 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - While the world is trying to reach a solution to the Middle East crisis, Israeli television said Friday, June 21, 2002, that hundreds of Israeli families, in recent months, have purchased lands in the occupied Golan Heights, an indication that settlement activity is resuming there.

The Israeli government tagged the lands for sale and granted buyers an attractive deal, drawing many young Israeli couples, the report said.

For around 100,000 dollars they can buy a 160 square meter (1,722 square foot) house with a surrounding 700 square meters (7,535 square feet) of land, it added.

Israel occupied the Golan Heights from Syria in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war and formally annexed it in 1981.

The relaunch of settlement building in the plateau began after U.S.-sponsored Israeli-Syrian negotiations came to a deadlock in 2000, the report said.

During the wars of 1967 and 1973, nearly 150,000 residents fled the plateau to Syria.

Some 17,000 Syrian Druzes remain there, though most refuse to have any allegiance to the Jewish state or carry its national identity cards.

There are some 20,000 Jewish settlers in the Golan Heights, living in 18 mostly agricultural settlements.