Passover tours across Syrian border sold out

The morning and afternoon family-oriented tours, which are subject to security considerations, will be accompanied by a military escort.

By Etgar Lefkovits, JNS

It’s not your typical Israeli holiday walking tour.

Passover tours just across the border in Syria have quickly sold out.

Israeli forces took up defensive positions on the Syrian side of Mount Hermon shortly after rebels ousted President Bashar Assad in December and the area became a closed military zone.

Four months later, the Israeli military-approved border-area tours of the Syrian side of the Golan Heights during the weeklong Passover holiday are scheduled to get underway next week.

The size-limited tours to the eastern side of the strategic plateau—which are being organized by an Israeli tour group—include the first organized trip to the Ruqqad (Roked), a wadi in southwestern Syria that flows into the Yarmouk River.

The Ruqqad is one of the main tributaries of the Yarmouk and forms the topographical eastern boundary of the Golan Heights.

In addition, there will be tours of Mount Hermon and a tour of the Hejaz Railway Tunnel along the Yarmouk.

The railway operated between 1908 and 1920 and connected Istanbul, the capital of the Ottoman Empire and seat of the Islamic Caliphate, and the Hejaz region in western Arabia, the site of the holiest shrines of Islam, with a branch line to Haifa on the Mediterranean Sea

The morning and afternoon family-oriented tours, which are subject to security considerations, will be accompanied by a military escort. Organizers said Sunday that they hope to get the military’s permission to open additional spaces on the tours.

The initiative is a collaboration between the IDF, the army’s 210th Division, the Keshet Yehonatan educational center, the Golan Field School, the Golan Regional Council and the Israel Nature and Parks Authority.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that Israel will remain on the Syrian side of the strategic plateau until another arrangement can be found.

Israeli officials had described the move as limited and temporary to ensure the security of Israel’s border area.