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Jerusalem Post Israel News


IDF UNCOVERS EXTENSIVE HEZBOLLAH TUNNEL NEAR ISRAELI BORDER, REVEALING THREAT OF
SURPRISE ATTACKS


UNTIL LAST WEEK, WHEN THE IDF UNCOVERED THE TUNNEL, THIS HOME WOULD HAVE BEEN
THE LAUNCHING PAD FOR AN OCTOBER 7-STYLE ATTACK AGAINST ISRAEL.

By TOVAH LAZAROFF
OCTOBER 26, 2024 19:00
Updated: OCTOBER 26, 2024 21:26
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Destruction of a strategic Hezbollah underground facility in Lebanon. (Credit:
IDF Spokesperson's Unit)

SOUTHERN LEBANON – Nestled in the scenic hills of southern Lebanon in the
backyard of a private home near the Israeli border is the entryway to a 1.5
kilometer Hezbollah tunnel with the capacity to house hundreds of enemy
fighters.



Until last week, when the IDF’s Yahalom Unit uncovered the tunnel, this home
would have been the launching pad for an October 7-style attack against Israel,
with soldiers pouring from the ground to head to and cross the border.



On Saturday the IDF destroyed the tunnel. But on Monday night before it was
blown up, Brig.-Gen. Guy Levy, who heads the IDF’s 98th Division, led a group of
Israeli journalists to see firsthand the subterranean battlefields, which first
marked the IDF’s war with Hamas and is now a significant part of the army’s
battle against Hezbollah.



“We are at a central intersection of this tunnel,” which is also a “very
significant underground combat compound,” said Levy as he stood in the concrete
underground shaft.


An underground Hezbollah complex raided by IDF soldiers, October 24, 2024.
(credit: IDF SPOKESPERSON'S UNIT)

“The enemy built this over many years to prepare to attack Israel,” he said. “It
can hold hundreds of terrorists for an extended stay of weeks” and extends
“hundreds of meters.”



The late-night journey into Lebanon began in the parking lot of a supermarket in
Kiryat Shmona, a city that has been under rocket fire since the IDF-Hezbollah
war began on October 8, one day after the Hamas invasion of southern Israel.




HEZBOLLAH TUNNEL MEDIA TOUR

Israel evacuated its northern residents from that border area, including the
border city of Kiryat Shmona, fearing a Hezbollah invasion.


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Close to one year later, on October 1, when the IDF entered southern Lebanon,
the army declassified documents relating to a long-planned Hezbollah operation
to attack Israel called “Conquer the Galilee.”


IDF commanders in the area of an underground Hezbollah facility in Lebanon.
(Credit: IDF Spokesperson's Unit)

In the weeks that followed, the IDF has discovered tunnels that would have been
involved in the attack and has shown them to journalists, to underscore the
danger Israel had faced and would face if its forces were not in southern
Lebanon.



But the tunnel it revealed to the media on Monday night was unusually large and
extensive.



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In Kiryat Shmona, reporters donned flak jackets and helmets before entering army
jeeps, where they sat on rickety benches and a cloth covering. The road became
darker as the jeeps drew closer to the border itself and to a base, with a large
Israeli flag hanging from an outer wall.



From here, reporters were asked to turn their cellphones onto airplane mode to
avoid detection.



As the jeeps crossed the border, an intelligence officer with the group quipped,
“Since I’d like to live, actually just turn them off altogether to be safe.”


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In the still darkness, one could hear only the jeep’s engines and explosions in
the distance. Dust from the jeeps hung in the air. One could see the shapes of
trees dotting the Lebanese landscape and the occasional deserted structures,
including homes, before the jeep came to a stop next to several scattered
single-family homes.



“Welcome abroad,” one of the soldiers joked after the reporters had descended
from the jeeps.


Maj. A, a Yahalom Unit company commander reports on the discovery a massive
Hezbollah underground facility. (Credit: IDF Spokesperson's Unit)

Another soldier silenced him, urging the reporters to move quickly down and then
up a small unpaved road to what looked like a residential home.



Reporters walked down a side stone stairwell and onto a first-floor side porch.
Here they were shown a map of the tunnel drawn by a magic marker on a white door
that had been removed from its frame and was now used as a whiteboard.



From here, reporters climbed over the porch wall, into the yard, and then down
into the tunnel with a winding stairwell that led to the larger intersection
point of three of the tunnel’s arched alleyways, which were only wide enough to
fit two or three people side by side.



Levy addressed the group. Although he stood next to a utility box and an
electric light designed to be generator powered, these were no longer operating,
so his face was lit up by flashlights and camera bulbs.



IDF forces went through a 48-hour battle to take this village, including a
fierce fight at the entry to the tunnel shaft, he said.


IDF Capt. Nehemiah, a company commander in the Paratroopers Brigade, explains
the IDF's discoveries in a massive underground Hezbollah structure in Lebanon.
(Credit: IDF Spokesperson's Unit)

Reporters were shown a storage room with rifles, RPK machine guns, Kornet
anti-tank missiles, and boxes of ammunition. Some of the weapons originated from
Iran, according to Lt.-Col. Yoni HaCohen, the commander of the 890th
Paratroopers Battalion.



Intermixed in the same storage room were boxes of food and medical supplies.



The tunnel, which had a lighting system throughout, also had multiple bathrooms,
as well as large chambers with mattresses or cots so that soldiers could sleep.



In one room, a rifle had been left on a bed with a purple sheet and a water
bottle.



There was more than one exit point from the tunnel so that soldiers could enter
and exit at different points. The soldiers that spoke to the media said they
planned to continue searching for additional tunnels to make sure that Hezbollah
could not pose a subterranean threat to Israel.



“I feel like I have entered the belly of the enemy, taken when they built over
years,” said Lt.-Col. Yoni HaCohen.Finding this tunnel and destroying it, he
said, “is a great success.”





Related Tags
Israel
Hezbollah
IDF
Lebanon
Attack Tunnels
Northern Arrows

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