Israel’s defense minister visits the Syrian border amid ongoing threats to northern Israel

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant visited the Israel-Syria border on Sunday, where he was briefed in detail on Iran and Hezbollah’s ongoing efforts to establish a presence across Syria.

The Defense Minister was accompanied by Brigadier General Zion Retzon, commander of Division 210, and other senior officers. The comprehensive situation assessment along the border included an inspection of the Ramim Ridge area of ​​the Naphtali Mountains in the Upper Galilee, and a meeting with reserve officers deployed there.

“I patrolled the Golan Heights sector this morning and together with the division commander I witnessed the exceptional preparedness of the IDF forces in the eastern sector,” Gallant said afterwards.

“We are actively preventing the establishment of Hezbollah and Iranian forces trying to reach the Golan Heights border. We maintain complete freedom of action to attack any target or enemy that poses a threat to us.”

Gallant also noted that the IDF is deeply committed to protecting residents of northern Israel from the threat of Iran and its allies.

“To achieve this goal, we are intensifying our intelligence collection, strengthening troop deployments and conducting rigorous training to respond quickly and effectively to any challenges,” he said.

Since the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, the epicenter of the war in the Gaza Strip has been in the south. However, since October 8, the Iranian-backed Shiite militia Hezbollah has been attacking northern Israel almost daily with drones, rockets and rockets. Hezbollah’s much greater firepower than Hamas makes the Lebanese terror group a much more serious security threat to Israel.

After the Hamas invasion and the massacre of more than 1,200 Israelis, Israel feared that Hezbollah would launch a similar invasion of northern Israel. Security experts even noted that Hamas’s invasion was virtually copied from Hezbollah’s playbook. Israeli authorities therefore quickly evacuated most residents from Israel’s northernmost communities, close to the Lebanese border.

Northern Israeli towns, such as Kiryat Shmona, have literally become ghost towns. After more than six months of war, some 80,000 Israelis are still living in their suitcases, without knowing when they will be able to return to their homes.

In December, security researchers at the Alma Research and Education Center warned that Hezbollah’s elite Radwan commando unit was prepared to invade northern Israel as soon as it was ordered to do so.

“The Radwan unit is fully trained and capable of launching an incursion into the Galilee at any time,” the Alama researchers said. assessed. “Even as the majority of Hezbollah’s elite forces have distanced themselves from the border, there has been a change in Hezbollah’s overall preparedness.”

Since then, the Israeli army has deployed large forces to secure the Jewish state’s northern borders. However, the threat to northern Israel is still potent, with Hezbollah forces in Lebanon and several other Iranian-backed terror militias in neighboring Syria.