IDF Home Front Command lifts restrictions on Golan Heights, amid Lebanon ceasefire
Change enters effect Wednesday evening, with most restrictions already gone, as the truce with Hezbollah broadly holding; IDF statement does not mention developments in Syria
The IDF Home Front Command lifted restrictions in the northern Golan Heights Wednesday evening, following a security assessment.
The permitted activity level in the area was increased from partial to full.
The decision — which came into effect at 6 p.m. — came several weeks into a shaky ceasefire with the Hezbollah terror group in Lebanon, and was a relatively minor change, with most activity already permitted.
Restrictions in the area were first eased following the start of the ceasefire, which came into effect in late November.
The truce has broadly held, though Israel has targeted some Hezbollah operatives and sites, asserting its right to respond to violations by the terror group.
Hezbollah began firing into Israel one day after Hamas’s October 7, 2023, onslaught in southern Israel, in support of its fellow Iran-backed terror group, drawing Israeli reprisals and leading to the displacement of some 60,000 residents of northern Israel.
Fighting intensified in late September, with Israel killing much of Hezbollah’s leadership and launching a limited ground incursion on October 1.
According to the ceasefire, Israeli forces are set to withdraw from southern Lebanon, granting control to the Lebanese military, with American oversight, as Hezbollah leaves southern Lebanon as well.
The adjustment of guidelines Wednesday also came amid ongoing Israeli military operations in neighboring Syria, following the sudden fall of the Bashar al-Assad regime there on Sunday, but the announcement did not make mention of those developments.
Israeli airstrikes have destroyed most of the deposed regime’s strategic assets, Israel said, and troops have seized temporary control of a buffer zone along the countries’ border.
