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Israel lifts most security guidelines after Hezbollah strike

Northern mayors say IDF only carried out powerful preemptive strike because Tel Aviv was threatened.

View of a fire in Metula, the Upper Galilee, started by missiles launched from Lebanon, June 18, 2024. Photo by Ayal Margolin/Flash90.
View of a fire in Metula, the Upper Galilee, started by missiles launched from Lebanon, June 18, 2024. Photo by Ayal Margolin/Flash90.

The IDF has lifted crowd restrictions issued for Tel Aviv and Haifa as well as many cities and towns in northern Israel that were put in place early Sunday morning during the Air Force’s preemptive strike against Hezbollah in Lebanon.

The midday move, which follows the latest security assessment, leaves the IDF Home Front Command guidelines in place in communities along the Lebanon border and in the Golan Heights.

The security instructions are continually updated on the National Emergency Portal and the Home Front Command app.

The pre-dawn Israeli strike foiled a major Hezbollah attack on Israel.

But some mayors from northern communities as well as some Israeli politicians said that the attack was woefully insufficient.

“Beirut needs to be on fire in order for us to return to our homes,” said Metula Mayor David Azulay.

He added that Israel knows where 60-70% of Hezbollah’s weapons are located but has not attacked them over the last 10 and a half months as the Lebanese terrorist group rained down thousands of missiles on northern Israel in support of Hamas in Gaza.

“Why did we attack today? Because there was a planned attack on Tel Aviv,” Azulay said.

Some 60,000 people from northern Israel remain displaced from their homes because of the war.

The company commander also served as an aide to senior figures in Hamas’s “military wing,” including Mohammed Deif.
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