The commander of the IDF Home Front Command's Northern Division Brig.-Gen. Alon Friedman told members of the emergency response squads in northern Israel that standby teams would be heavily reduced starting Sunday, an IDF document said on Monday.
This comes in light of the ceasefire with Hezbollah and a resumption of talks between Israeli and Lebanese delegations in Washington.
However, a Northern Command source noted that while the squads will be ending their continuous reserve duty, they will be placed "in readiness in case of escalation or a heightened incident."
A member of Moshav Goren's emergency response squad denounced the decision by saying that it is "a spit in the face of everyone who has protected the area over the last three years."
"The ink on the ceasefire agreements has not yet dried, the silence here is a false and tense silence, and the first decision taken is to dismantle the last line of defense of our settlements? The people who left everything, who did not sleep at night, and who were the first to jump and the last to leave," he added.
"To release the squads immediately, without a transition period, without proven security [infrastructure] on the ground - this is not a return to routine. This is abandonment," he said.
Netanyahu handing northern communities to Iran, Qatar
"After selling the residents of the Gaza border communities to Qatari interests, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is doing it again, and handing over the future of the northern communities to Iran and Qatar," a member of Kibbutz Kfar Giladi's emergency response squad said.
"This is no longer abandonment. It is harmful to the security interests of residents of the North, and all of Israel," he added.
According to him, this decision is a strategic disaster that may lead to mass abandonment of residents.
Home Front Command eases security guideline restrictions on Lebanon border communities
The announcement follows HFC's announcement that defensive guidelines in areas near Lebanon will be restored to a level of “full activity ” on Monday.
Due to the long-standing conflict with the Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah, and the threat of rockets and drones faced by the communities closest to the border, many communities have been restricted for much of the last two and a half years.
A ceasefire in Lebanon is included in the US-Iranian Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), which was signed last week by both parties. Despite this, fighting was reported in southern Lebanon after the adoption of the ceasefire, which could threaten the stability of the MoU.