Israel’s military is organising hiking tours for civilians in newly occupied Syrian territory during the Passover holiday, local media has reported. The twice-daily tours in the contested Golan Heights will run for a week beginning this Sunday. Tickets sold out almost immediately.

Under a military escort in bulletproof buses, small groups will travel up to 2.5km into Syrian territory that was off limits until the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) seized the Golan buffer zone after the fall of the Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad in December. Israel has occupied the Golan Heights since 1967 and now controls hundreds more square kilometres of Syrian land.