Israeli military boosts Golan Heights defense amid growing threats from Iran, Hezbollah
The unprecedented Hamas Oct. 7 attack in southern Israel initially turned most of the attention toward the terrorist state that Hamas built in Gaza.
However, the far more powerful Iranian-backed Lebanese terrorist proxy Hezbollah’s ongoing aggression against northern Israel has forced Israeli leaders to increasingly shift their focus to the northern front.
Tens of thousands of Israelis who live in the north have been displaced from their homes as a result of the Hezbollah attacks. The Israeli Golan Heights were until recently a comparatively calm region as Hezbollah’s drone and rocket attacks focused on the Galilee region.
However, in late July, a Hezbollah rocket killed 12 children and youths who were playing soccer in the Druze Golan Heights town of Majdal Shams. The tragic event was a strong reminder that the Golan Heights is connected to the larger multi-front assault on Israel by the Iranian regime, which has been targeting IDF military bases in the region.
The strategically important Golan Heights constitutes a crucial geographical buffer for Israel that separates Israel from its hostile neighbor Syria, which is allied with Iran and Hezbollah.
The Israeli military is consequently boosting its defense amid growing threats of a full-scale war with Hezbollah and Iran and as terrorists in Syria are increasingly approaching the Israel-Syria border.
Israel Defense Forces are currently upgrading outdated outposts and restoring old anti-tank ditches in the Golan Heights to strengthen Israel’s defense against a potential invasion. In addition, there is an increasing deployment of Israeli soldiers to the area. The IDF has been arresting or neutralizing any suspicious individuals who approach the Israeli border from Syria.
"We have a plan to prevent masses of terrorists from reaching here by exploiting the Golan’s terrain, which is mostly flat and under constant surveillance," an IDF officer told the Israeli Ynet news outlet.
"Ultimately, it's about ground analysis. There are essential passages and natural obstacles here like the rugged wadis in the southern Golan, which any enemy must take into account – and so do we," the officer assessed.
The overall goal is to prevent the Oct. 7 terror attack from being repeated on Israel’s northern borders with Lebanon and Syria. The Israeli military believes that tens of thousands of “unemployed” Iran-loyal terrorists are awaiting orders from Tehran while being positioned around 40 km (around 25 miles) from the Israeli-Golan border. Terrorists in Syria are taking advantage of blending in with Syrian forces stationed near the Israeli border.
The “imminent” attack by Iran and Hezbollah are expected as a response to the elimination of two top Hezbollah and Hamas terrorists in Beirut and Tehran.
"We're already practicing the new defensive approach, transitioning from routine to emergency, alongside the communities and based on the existing forces even before reinforcements arrive," an IDF official told Ynet. "We haven't conducted an evacuation drill for the communities in the Golan yet, but it's being discussed."
The Iranian ayatollah regime openly calls for the destruction of the Jewish state and is pursuing this goal through its nuclear weapons program and by surrounding Israel with a “ring of fire,” a reference to Iran's terror proxies stationed along Israel’s borders, including the Golan Heights.
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The All Israel News Staff is a team of journalists in Israel.
