Israel’s military has cancelled planned tours of areas occupied by Israeli forces inside Syria, citing new and unspecified updates regarding the security situation.
This week, the Israeli military had allowed for the launching of tours within areas of south-western Syria that are currently illegally occupied by Israel, in which the prospective tourists would have reportedly been accompanied by guides holding official permits.
The tours were set to include areas usually off-limits to civilians and tourists, such as locations recently occupied by Israel over the past few months since former Syrian rebels took over the country and its governance amid the fall of the late Assad regime.
Occupation forces have now cancelled those plans, however, with the military announcing in a statement on Friday that the decision followed on from an “operational situation assessment”, adding that “entry to the fence-crossing routes will not be permitted at this stage”.
Those restrictions, according to Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth, apply to most of the occupied Syrian territories’ entry routes from Israel, but exclude the route located on Mount Hermon overlooking the Lebanese border, which is set to remain temporarily open.
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