Israel on high alert for possible border unrest
MAJDAL SHAMS, Golan Heights—Thousands of Israeli security forces mobilized for possible border unrest Sunday as Palestinians marked the anniversary of the Arab defeat in the 1967 Mideast war and Israel’s occupation of Arab land.
Borders with Syria, Lebanon, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank were quiet on Sunday morning. In Gaza, security forces from the ruling Hamas movement were keeping hundreds of protesters from approaching the border with Israel at two potential flashpoints.
Over the weekend, Palestinians in Syria and Lebanon canceled plans to march to their frontiers with Israel.
Israel wasn’t taking any chances after thousands of Arab protesters surged to Israel’s borders with Syria, Lebanon, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank last month on another key anniversary, Israel’s 1948 creation. Hundreds breached a porous border fence at the time and entered a border village in the Golan Heights, which Israel captured from Syria in 1967.
Fifteen people died in border clashes with Israeli and possibly Lebanese security forces.
Since that May 15 confrontation, Israel has fortified its northern frontier with trenches and land mines.
The military wouldn’t release troop deployment details Sunday. Soldiers stationed along the border fence said the northern Golan had been declared a closed military zone.
Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said thousands of officers were mobilized across the country in anticipation of possible disturbances, with an emphasis on the north and Jerusalem.
Israel also seized east Jerusalem and the West Bank from Jordan, and Gaza from Egypt, in the six-day war in 1967. Palestinians want all three territories for their future state.
