The Defense Ministry cleared a minefield left from the Yom Kippur War in the Golan Heights recently, it announced on Tuesday.
The ministry released a video showing the operation to clear the field. After a 20-second countdown, a row of explosions can be seen in the video.
The cleared land will be used to produce green energy.
"Along the borders of the country there are minefields laid by the IDF or by the Syrians and Jordanians."
Sharon Hadad
About 33,000 dunams of mines in Israel were cleared in the past decade
"Along the borders of the country there are minefields laid by the IDF or by the Syrians and Jordanians," explained Sharon Hadad, head of the Israel National Mine Action Authority (INMAA), to the Defense Ministry's podcast Mod.Cast. "A situation has arisen in which there are different types of mines in the ground from different sources, among others British, French, Czech, German mines. For example, just recently we found in Kala in the Golan Heights a German mine with a swastika that Syria received from Germany."
According to Hadad, the INMAA has cleared about 33,000 dunams (3,300 hectares) of minefields and unexploded ordnance in the past 10 years.
"The areas we clear are used for agriculture, industrial development, the opening of travel areas and tourist sites, and the expansion and establishment of settlements," said the INMAA head.
"Each minefield has its own 'identification card' and we adapt the most correct way to handle it. In recent years, the use of technologies that already significantly shorten (and will further shorten) the time it takes to locate and clear mines and fallout has been increasing."