Israeli soldiers on Monday detained two Israeli civilians who crossed the border into the Syrian Golan Heights in the area of Mount Hermon, the Israel Defense Forces said in a statement.
“IDF troops who were dispatched to the scene located the civilians, returned them to Israeli territory,” and transferred them to the Israel Police for further handling, the military noted.
The IDF said that it “strongly condemns” the incident, which constitutes another “serious disruption” of operational activity and “poses a danger to the safety of IDF troops.”
The army further called on law enforcement authorities “to bring those involved to justice and to prevent those individuals from repeatedly engaging in this incident, which constitutes a criminal offense.”
A security source told JNS on Sunday that the pace of these crossings has surged.
“In the past month, we had almost eight entries of people like this, which is a lot,” the source said, adding that beyond the eight completed crossings, additional groups have been intercepted before reaching the border.
In recent days, Israeli military observers reportedly aborted an airstrike moments before launch near Mount Hermon after realizing the suspected infiltrators were not a hostile cell but activists from the HaBashan Pioneers settlement movement, which has staged a series of escalating incursions in recent months. It aims to establish Jewish settlements in the biblical Bashan region, spanning the Golan Heights and parts of southern Syria.
