The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) revealed Saturday that it had discovered a massive underground tunnel near the border in southern Lebanon that could have been used to stage an October 7-style attack against Israel.
The tunnel was discovered last week, and shown to Israeli reporters on Monday night, but only revealed Saturday.
The Jerusalem Post reported:
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.
The IDF described the tunnel in a statement:
For the past month, the Paratroopers Brigade Combat Team has been engaged in complex targeted operations in mountainous, and subterranean areas in Southern Lebanon.
During a joint operation with the Yahalom Unit, which included extensive underground searches in the area, the troops discovered and destroyed a strategic underground military facility built by Hezbollah over the past 15 years.
The facility was over 1.5 kilometers long and stored equipment that enabled hundreds of militants to stay inside for extended periods of time. This included food supplies, beds, storage cabinets, electrical power, and an arsenal of weapons—including anti-tank missiles, rockets, RPGs, landmines, and numerous explosive devices.
The operation was conducted in cooperation with the 77th Battalion, the 8219th Engineer Battalion, the Yahalom Unit, and the ISA.
During searches and the examination of the underground command center, Yahalom Unit soldiers engaged in close-quarters encounters with entrenched militants. All enemy forces were eliminated.
Israel has been on the ground in southern Lebanon for nearly a month, responding to nearly a year of Hezbollah attacks on northern Israel, which forced the evacuation of over 60,000 residents, Jewish and Arab, from their homes.
Update: The destruction of the tunnel produced shock waves that triggered earthquake alerts in northern Israel.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of The Agenda: What Trump Should Do in His First 100 Days, available for pre-order on Amazon. He is also the author of The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency, now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
