Despite Israel’s nearly year-long war with Hamas in Gaza after the October 7 attack, security experts continue to sound the alarm that Jerusalem’s greatest threat actually lies to the north in Lebanon, where Hezbollah has developed a sophisticated tunnel system.
Hezbollah, an Islamic terrorist organization long supported by Iran, has spent two decades developing a network of tunnels that is more than 100 miles in cumulative length in southern Lebanon.
Although the existence of the tunnels has been known for decades, the important role they played in the survival of Hezbollah was seen again during the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, where the terrorists not only relied on the tunnels for re-arming and maneuverability, but also to house the hostages they took. by Hamas almost a year ago.
While it is estimated that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have destroyed approximately 80% of Hamas tunnels, Hezbollah tunnels, which have remained largely untouched since the war in Gaza began, are believed to be more sophisticated and “larger”. according to a report by the Alma Center for Research and Education, a non-profit organization that investigates Israel’s security challenges on its northern border.
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A guided tour by the Israeli army on June 3, 2019, shows the interior of a tunnel under the Lebanon-Israel border. (JACK GUEZ/AFP via Getty Images)
Hezbollah is believed to have started tunnel mining after the Second Lebanon War in 2006 in close coordination between Iran and North Korea after Tehran reportedly got “inspiration” from Pyongyang and tunnels developed after the Korean War.
Iran considers North Korea a “professional authority on the topic of tunneling” because of its experience in digging tunnels for military use when it tried to drill tunnels in the Korean Demilitarized Zone in an attempt to attack areas north of Seoul, the Korean capital. South Korea.
While the tunnels and their purpose of use have never been realized by the authoritarian state, two of the four neutral tunnels found are reported to be able to accommodate up to 30,000 troops per hour along with armaments such as armored personnel carriers, tanks and field artillery – Hezbollah’s operational blueprint. has turned to war against Israel.
The report found that Hezbollah under the auspices of North Korea – a relationship that may date back to the 1980s – built two types of tunnels in southern Lebanon, “offensive tunnels and infrastructure tunnels.”
This image provided on Friday shows a comparison between tunnels dug by North Korea and Hezbollah. (Alma Research and Education Center)
The offensive tunnels were intended for operational use similar to those of North Korea, and at least six tunnels were discovered by IDF forces entering Israeli territory during Operation Northern Shield, which began in December 2018.
Alma’s research found that some of Hezbollah’s tunnels could also transport ATVs, motorcycles and other “small vehicles,” although it did not specify the number of terrorists they could accommodate.
The tunnels are equipped with “ground command and control rooms, weapons and supply depots, field clinics and special shafts used to fire missiles of all types,” the report said, noting that weapons like rockets, surface-to-surface missiles, anti-tank missiles and anti-aircraft missiles can be fired from “shafts” in the tunnel. “These shafts are hidden and camouflaged and cannot be detected above ground.”
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The tunnel is believed to link the capital Beirut, where Hezbollah’s headquarters and logistics base are located in the Beqaa Valley near the Syrian border, to southern Lebanon.
The image provided this Friday shows the area that Hezbollah has infiltrated in Lebanon. (Alma Research and Education Center)
“We call this inter-regional tunnel network ‘Hizbullah’s Land of Tunnels,'” the Alma report first released in 2021 detailed, noting the tunnel system is more like a “metro” of tunnels than one long tunnel.
A second series of tunnels mined by Hezbollah, known as infrastructure tunnels, form an underground network in and near southern Lebanese villages that create the first and second “lines of defense” against an Israeli invasion — a project of “huge magnitude,” according to the Alma report.
One of the tunnels is estimated to be nearly 28 miles long, raising questions about how terrorist organizations could get away with building such a sophisticated system without opposition from the Lebanese government.
Hezbollah terrorists participate in training in the village of Aaramta in southern Lebanon in May 2023. (AP/Hasan Ammar)
“Hezbollah is trying to keep the location, route, internal structure, etc., of the tunnel a secret. influence the government,” Boaz Shapira, a researcher with Alma, told Fox News Digital.
Shapira said Hezbollah not only has the support of roughly 40%-50% of the Lebanese population, but is “better funded, organized, trained and armed” than the Lebanese government, army, police or even the UN Interim Force in Lebanon. , which has a force of about 10,500 peacekeepers in Lebanon and was implemented after the 2006 war.
Spanish UN peacekeepers stand on a hill overlooking Lebanon’s border with Israel on January 10, 2024.
Hezbollah’s cooperation with authoritarian countries like Iran and North Korea has long been a major threat to Israel.
But its growing power in Lebanon has moved it to the top of the list when it comes to Israel’s security threats, according to not only Shapira but also former IDF Major General Yaakov Amidror.
“The Lebanese government is very aggressive in fighting Hezbollah,” Amidror told Fox News Digital. “Everything important is decided by Hezbollah, not the government.”
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Hezbollah is believed to have up to 50,000 terrorists and, according to Shapira, its influence has extended to almost every branch of the Lebanese security apparatus.
“Taking action against Hezbollah will be considered as cooperation with Israel and basically as treason in Lebanon, and last year also against Palestine,” he said. “This means that no army has an incentive to challenge Hezbollah.”
Hezbollah terror forces train in southern Lebanon near the Israeli border. (AP/Hassan Ammar/File)
Shapira said the demographics of the Christian-majority country have changed over the past several decades, and it now has a Muslim-majority population — although the US State Department analyzed the breakdown of Lebanon’s Muslim population as roughly equal between Shia and Sunni groups.
“This trend is also happening in the army. It means that almost every Shi’ite soldier in the army has a brother, cousin, friend who is a Hezbollah terrorist,” said Shapira.
Amidror, a distinguished fellow at the Jewish Institute for American National Security after serving as Israel’s former national security adviser to the prime minister and a 36-year veteran of the IDF, told Fox News Digital that he believes Israel must take a proactive approach when it comes to fighting Hezbollah.
Hezbollah fighters form a human barrier during a funeral procession for Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr in the southern suburbs of Beirut on August 1, 2024. (KHALED DESOUKI/AFP via Getty Images)
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“We must start the war against Hezbollah,” he said, noting that the timing of the operation was the main variable to be determined.
“This will not be an easy job. It will be a very destructive war for us and for Lebanon,” the retired general said. “Remember, at least 50% of missiles are hidden in densely populated areas.
“Their deaths will be too many, (a) devastating war for us and for them,” Amidror said. “This is why it is a problem to fight against these organizations, because they are fighting from their own population, (and their target) is the Israeli population.
“If you fight from civilians and your targets are civilians, it’s very complicated to fight,” he said.
