At Hezbollah tunnel, UN envoy calls on Security Council to brand it a terror group

Israeli Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon takes fellow envoys from the United Nations to see a cross-border attack tunnel from Lebanon dug by Hezbollah.

“The struggle against Hezbollah is also a diplomatic struggle. Hezbollah has established a state in southern Lebanon and built several tunnels to harm Israeli residents,” Danon says, according to a statement from his office.

“This is an opportunity for the international community to call on the Lebanese government to renounce Hezbollah, instead of giving it portfolios in the government, and demand the Security Council recognize it as a terrorist organization immediately,” he adds.

Israel launched an operation in December to locate and destroy tunnels dug from Lebanon that it says Hezbollah planned to use in order to smuggle its fighters into Israel in a future war. The army announced the end of the operation last month.

During the anti-tunnel campaign, the UN Security Council held a meeting on condemning Hezbollah and branding it a terror group, but did not take any action.

Israeli Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon (2nd-L) and a delegation of envoys from the United Nations stand near a cross-border tunnel dug by Hezbollah from Syria near Metulla in northern Israel on February 3, 2019. (Basel Awidat/Flash90)