Human Rights Watch on Monday lashes US President Donald Trump for his promise to recognize Israeli sovereignty on the Golan Heights.

In a statement, the group calls the decision, expected to be ratified in a directive to be signed by Trump as Netanyahu visits the White House on Monday morning Washington time, a denial of “the reality of Israel’s occupation of the Golan Heights” and warns it “would demonstrate disregard for the protections due to the Syrian population under international humanitarian law.”

The recognition is “particularly” worrying given “continuing, serious rights abuses by Israel in the Golan Heights,” the group claims.

It suggests Israeli violations amount mostly to Israel’s presence there, which violates the “prohibition against building settlements and extracting natural resources for the benefit of the occupier.”

“The fact that Israel offered Syrians in the Golan Heights Israeli citizenship, which most have declined, does not change the status of the territory as occupied. An occupation continues as long as the occupier maintains effective control over the territory and there is no widely accepted political settlement changing that status,” Human Rights Watch says.

“President Trump appears poised to drive a wrecking ball through the international law that protects the population of the occupied Golan Heights,” the statements quotes the group’s deputy Middle East and North Africa director Eric Goldstein saying. “If Trump follows through, it may embolden other occupying states to double down on their own land grabs, settlements, and plunder of resources.”