As border tensions rise, army urges Golan residents not to disrupt daily lives
Amid fears of Iranian retaliation, border towns prepare bomb shelters but say schools and other activities operating normally
Towns and villages on the Golan Heights in northern Israel awoke to a tense morning on Wednesday following a reported overnight airstrike against an Iranian military installation in Syria, but authorities said that daily life should continue as normal on the plateau.
The Golan Regional Council announced Wednesday morning all schools would open normally.
The IDF ordered local councils to open bomb shelters in the border area late Tuesday, after saying it had identified “abnormal movements of Iranian forces in Syria,” amid fears of fears of retaliatory attacks.
“Concern is high,” Eli Malka, head of the Golan Regional Council, told Army Radio on Wednesday morning.
“We’re at a high level of readiness and have undertaken our preparations,” he added. “We’ve worked with the army in recent years to prepare each village to be ready for days like these. The shelters are ready, the people are resilient.”
The army said Wednesday morning it would not disrupt the “civilian routine” in the area, but remained at high alert. The IDF earlier said it was calling up a limited number of reservists and deployed missile defense batteries in northern Israel
“Following an assessment in the Northern Command, [officials] decided to allow an unimpeded civilian routine to continue, and allow trips [to the Golan] to take place,” the army said in a statement.
It specifically urged that “school activities and agricultural work continue as usual, in coordination with the IDF.”
It added: “A number of tourist sites will be closed on a per-case basis.”
In Katzrin, the largest town on the plateau, officials said they had been preparing the municipal bomb shelters over the past week, and had opened them after receiving instructions to do so from the IDF.
The tensions come as Syrian state media reported on Tuesday night that Israel conducted a strike south of Damascus, reportedly killing nine pro-Iranian fighters in an area previously identified as the site of a suspected Iranian military base.
Syria’s official SANA news outlet said that the country’s air defenses intercepted two Israeli missiles over the el-Kiswah area, south of Damascus. The report did not specify how many missiles were fired. Israel has not claimed responsibility for the strike.
Rami Abd el-Rahman, director of the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, told AFP the strike targeted an “arms depot belonging to Hezbollah and the Iranians.”
Earlier on Tuesday night, US President Donald Trump announced that the United States was pulling out of the Iran nuclear deal and imposing new sanctions on the Islamic Republic, in part due to Iran’s destabilizing activities in the Middle East.
Judah Ari Gross contributed to this report.
