
Thousands of children returned to school in communities near Israel's northern border this morning (Sunday) after the IDF Home Front Command relaxed guidelines in light of the ceasefire signed with Lebanon last week.
Schools and preschools in the border area and the northern Golan Heights reopened in accordance with the more relaxed guidelines, which allow schools that have shelters students can reach in time in the event of a siren to reopen.
Last night, the IDF Spokesperson's Unit announced, "Following a situational assessment held by the Chief of General Staff LTG Herzi Halevi, the Minister of Defense, Israel Katz, determined that as of this evening (Saturday) at 18:00, changes will be made to the Home Front Command’s defensive guidelines."
"As part of the changes, the activity scale in the areas of the Confrontation Line and the Northern Golan will change from Limited Activity to Partial Activity.In the rest of the country, Full Activity will be permitted without the restriction on gatherings except for the communities surrounding the Gaza Strip (Full Activity with the restriction of gatherings of up to 2000 people)," the statement continued.
The ceasefire in the north went into effect at 4 a.m. on Wednesday morning, following nearly 14 months of nonstop Hezbollah rocket and UAV attacks on northern Israel that displaced about 70,000 Israelis from their homes.
Hezbollah, which began its attacks on October 8, 2023 in support of the Hamas terrorist organization and the massacre Hamas committed in southern Israel the previous day, had maintained that it would only stop attacking Israel if the Jewish State ended its military retaliation against Hamas in Gaza.
Following a devastating two-month military campaign dubbed 'Northern Arrows' which saw Hezbollah's senior leadership wiped out and its stores of rockets and UAVs reduced to a fraction of what they were before, Hezbollah dropped its demand that any ceasefire in Lebanon be tied to an end to the war in Gaza.