Defense Minister Israel Katz visits the Mahaneh Yehudah market in Jerusalem, on September 2, 2025. (Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)

For the first time since the October 7, 2023, onslaught, Defense Minister Israel Katz has decided that an emergency situation declared in southern Israel will be lifted.

The “special situation” allowed the military’s Home Front Command to restrict gatherings and close off areas. It was declared on the morning of October 7 in the entire country, but has since remained in place only in the south.

The order will expire tomorrow, and for the first time in over two years, there will be no active “special situation” in Israel.

“I have decided to adopt the IDF’s recommendation and to remove, for the first time since October 7, the special situation in the home front,” Katz says in a statement.

He says that “the decision reflects the new security reality in the south of the country that was achieved thanks to the determined and powerful actions over the past two years of our heroic troops against the Hamas terror organization.

Times of Israel