Washington DC: On Monday, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at his side, US President Donald Trump declared that the Golan Heights belongs to Israel -- handing another major diplomatic victory to the premier ahead of tight elections. Netanyahu spared no praise as he watched Trump sign the Golan proclamation at the White House, likening him to President Harry S Truman, who recognised Israel, and even to Cyrus the Great, the Persian king who freed the Jews of Babylon.

Netanyahu told Trump "Your decision to recognize Israel's sovereignty on the Golan Heights is so historic,". The Jewish state captured the territory from Syria during the Six-Day War of 1967. He said "Your recognition is a twofold act of historic justice. Israel won the Golan Heights in a just war of self-defense, and the Jewish people's roots in the Golan go back thousands of years,". Trump -- who in 2017 took the even more momentous step of recognizing disputed Jerusalem as Israel's capital -- called the Golan declaration "a long time in the making."

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Trump, who had revealed his intentions on the Golan on Thursday in a Twitter message said "It should have taken place many decades ago,". Netanyahu, a wily right-winger who this year would become the longest-serving prime minister in Israeli history, is facing an unexpectedly stiff challenge in April 9 elections from centrist Benny Gantz, who also came to Washington for AIPAC. Netanyahu was visiting Washington for the conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the pro-Israel US lobby, but cut his visit short after a rocket fired Monday from the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip hit a house north of Tel Aviv, wounding seven Israelis in an unusually long-range attack.

Just as Netanyahu entered the White House, Israeli warplanes struck targets in Gaza linked to Hamas -- which denied carrying out the attack -- with the prime minister vowing to respond "forcefully to this wanton aggression."

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