IDF destroys major tunnel of elite Hezbollah force as it tackles underground network

A tunnel in southern Lebanon belonging to Hezbollah’s elite Radwan Force was recently demolished by combat engineers, the IDF said Saturday.

The military described the underground passage as one of Radwan’s central tunnels in Lebanon, which included a command center, a weapons depot, rooms to reside in, scooter bikes, and other equipment.

Next to the tunnel, the IDF said troops also located dozens of weapons and equipment belonging to Hezbollah.

Additionally, more than 50 other tunnel shafts and three other major tunnels were demolished by combat engineers under the 91st Division in southern Lebanon, the IDF said.

According to the IDF, more than 100 tons of explosives were used to demolish the four tunnels.

Israeli forces have spent much of the past year destroying Hamas’s vast underground network in Gaza. They are now focused on dismantling tunnels and other hideouts belonging to Hezbollah in southern Lebanon.

Scarred by Hamas’s deadly massacre into Israel last year that sparked the war in Gaza, Israel says it aims to prevent similar atrocities across its northern border from ever being carried out.

The military has combed through the dense brush of southern Lebanon for the past two weeks, uncovering what it says are Hezbollah’s deep attack capabilities — highlighted by a tunnel system equipped with weapons caches and rocket launchers that pose a direct threat to nearby communities.

Israel’s war against the Iran-backed terror group stretches far inside Lebanon, and its airstrikes in recent weeks have killed more than 1,700 people, about a quarter of whom were women and children, according to local health authorities. The IDF estimates that more than 1,500 Hezbollah operatives have been killed in the conflict so far.

But its ground campaign has centered on a narrow patch of land just along the border, where Hezbollah has had a longstanding presence, in violation of UN resolutions.

Hezbollah has deep ties to southern Lebanon

Hezbollah, which seeks Israel’s destruction, is the Arab world’s most significant paramilitary force. It began firing rockets into Israel a day after Hamas’s devastating onslaught on October 7, 2023. After nearly a year of tit-for-tat fighting with Hezbollah, and warnings it would not tolerate the terror group’s continued presence on the border, Israel launched its ground invasion into southern Lebanon on October 1 and has since sent thousands of troops into the rugged terrain.

Even as it continues to bolster its forces, Israel says its invasion consists of “limited, localized and targeted ground raids” that are meant to destroy Hezbollah infrastructure, so that tens of thousands of displaced Israelis can return home. The fighting also has uprooted more than 1 million Lebanese in the past month.

Many residents of southern Lebanon are supporters of the group and benefit from its social outreach. Though most fled the area months ago, they widely see the heavily armed Hezbollah as their defender.

That broad support has allowed Hezbollah to establish “a military infrastructure for itself” within the villages, said Eva J. Koulouriotis, a political analyst specializing in the Middle East and Islamic terror groups. The military says it has found weapons within homes and buildings in the villages.

A land of tunnels

With Israel’s air power far outstripping Hezbollah’s defenses, the terror group has turned to underground tunnels as a way to elude Israeli drones and jets and prepare its attacks against Israeli communities. Experts say Hezbollah’s tunnels are not limited to the south.

“It’s a land of tunnels,” said Tal Beeri, who studies Hezbollah as director of research at the Alma Research and Education Center, a think tank with a focus on northern Israel’s security.

Koulouriotis said tunnels stretch under the southern suburbs of Beirut, where Hezbollah’s command and control are located and where it keeps a stockpile of strategic missiles. She said the group also maintains tunnels along the border with Syria, through which it smuggles weapons and other supplies from Iran into Lebanon.

Southern Lebanon is where Hezbollah maintains tunnels to store missiles — and from where it can launch them, Koulouriotis said. Some of the more than 50 Israelis killed by Hezbollah over the past year were hit by anti-tank missiles.

In contrast to the tunnels dug out by Hamas in the sandy coastal terrain of Gaza, Hezbollah’s tunnels in southern Lebanon were carved into solid rock, a feat that likely required time, money, machinery, and expertise.

An Israeli military official said that using prior intelligence, Israel had found “hundreds and hundreds and hundreds” of underground positions, many of which could hold about 10 operatives and were stocked with rations. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity in line with military rules, said troops were blowing up the tunnels or using cement to make them unusable.

The group used tunnels during the monthlong 2006 Second Lebanon War, but the network has been expanded since, defying a United Nations ceasefire resolution that compelled Lebanese and UN forces to keep Hezbollah out of the south.

In mid-August, Hezbollah released a video showing what appeared to be a cavernous underground tunnel large enough for trucks loaded with missiles to drive through. Hezbollah operatives were also seen riding motorcycles inside the illuminated tunnel, named Imad-4 after the group’s late military commander, Imad Mughniyeh, who was killed in Syria in 2008 in an explosion blamed on Israel.

Hezbollah’s tunnels could be hindering Israel’s mission

Israeli troops are pushing through southern Lebanon using tanks and engineering equipment, and air and ground forces have struck thousands of targets in the area since the invasion began.

The military recently said it found one cross-border tunnel that stretched just a few meters into Israel but did not have an opening. Israel also exposed a tunnel shaft that was located about 100 meters from a UN peacekeepers ‘ post, although it wasn’t clear what the precise purpose of that tunnel was.

Israel says the tunnels are stocked with supplies and weapons and are outfitted with lighting, ventilation, and sometimes plumbing, indicating they could be used for long stays. It says it has arrested several Hezbollah terror operatives hiding inside, including three on Tuesday who were found armed. The Israeli military official said many Hezbollah operatives appear to have withdrawn from the area.

Lebanese military expert Naji Malaeb, a retired brigadier general, asserted that Hezbollah’s tunnels were preventing Israel from making major gains. He compared that achievement to the war in Gaza, where Hamas has used its tunnels to bedevil Israeli forces and stage insurgency-like attacks. Nevertheless, Israel has managed to largely dismantle Hamas’s fighting capabilities in Gaza.

Israeli authorities insist the mission in Lebanon is succeeding. The military assesses it has killed hundreds of Hezbollah operatives in the ground operation (and a total of 1,500 in the conflict), while 17 Israeli soldiers have been killed during that time.

Israel has encountered Hezbollah’s tunnels before. In 2018, Israel launched an operation to destroy attack tunnels that crossed into Israeli territory. Beeri said that six tunnels were discovered, including one that was 1 kilometer (1,000 yards) long and 80 meters (87 yards) deep, crossing some 50 meters into Israel.

An October 7-style invasion

For Israel, the tunnels are evidence that Hezbollah planned what it says would be a bloody offensive against communities in the north.

“Hezbollah has openly declared that it plans to carry out its own October 7 massacre on Israel’s northern border, on an even larger scale,” IDF spokesman Rear. Adm. Daniel Hagari said the day troops entered Lebanon.

Former Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed by Israel last month while in an underground bunker, had signaled in speeches that Hezbollah could launch an attack on northern Israel.

In May 2023, just months before Hamas’s massacre, Hezbollah staged a simulation of an incursion into northern Israel with rifle-toting terrorists on motorcycles bursting through a mock border fence bedecked with Israeli flags.

Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.