SOUTH LEBANON — Under the cover of darkness and strict security, the Israeli military earlier this week led The Times of Israel and other reporters from an army post near Kiryat Shmona into southern Lebanon.
Traveling in a convoy of open-top humvees, we were being taken to a village several kilometers from the border, where Hezbollah had constructed a massive underground military base that the Israel Defense Forces says was to be used by the terror group in a planned invasion of Israel.
Members of the press were instructed to put their phones on airplane mode, not to turn on their screens throughout the drive, and to be as silent as possible, amid fears that Hezbollah operatives could spot us and launch anti-tank missiles at the convoy during the drive in enemy territory.
The humvees turned their headlights off as the convoy approached the border, and upon crossing it, the soldiers cocked their weapons.
Intermittent sounds of gunfire and explosions from artillery shelling were heard around us as we drove along a dirt path, the humvees kicking up dust. The soldiers leading the convoy were using night vision to see their way in the pitch black.
Upon arriving at the village, which the army asked us not to name in our reporting, and with just the moonlight to illuminate our way, the soldiers led us to the yard of a home. There, next to a tree, was a hole in the ground.
A small jump down and we were greeted with a long staircase running dozens of meters down. From there, the soldiers directed us on the correct pathway, taking us to the tunnel network’s main hallway.
But calling the passages tunnels fails to capture the scale of the subterranean system.
In all, the underground site — dug into a mountain — was some 2 kilometers in length. It reached depths of around 40 meters in some areas, and the hallways themselves were more than two meters high. In fact, it was the largest tunnel found by the army in southern Lebanon to date.
The Hezbollah site dwarfed even the most impressive Hamas tunnels uncovered in the Gaza Strip. Those are far more claustrophobic, with many requiring ducking and even crawling in some areas, and have limited ventilation.
The inside of a Hezbollah tunnel in southern Lebanon, in a handout video released by the IDF on October 26, 2024. (Israel Defense Forces)
“This isn’t a ‘tunnel,’ it’s an underground combat site, extremely significant, which the enemy constructed over years for the purpose of an invasion of Israel — we estimate targeting the northern towns,” said Brig. Gen. Guy Levy, the commander of the 98th Division, as he gave us a tour of the complex.
The military estimated that the tunnels were built by Hezbollah over the past 15 years.
The IDF believes the underground site was intended by Hezbollah for use as a staging ground, where hundreds of terror operatives would arrive when called, gather equipment, and ready themselves to attack Israeli towns. Hezbollah’s invasion plans never materialized.
In the event of fighting, Hezbollah members could also reside in the site for lengthy periods. It could also be used by officers for command and control, the IDF assesses.
According to the general, the tunnel network was large enough to hold hundreds of Hezbollah fighters, members of the terror group’s elite Radwan Force, to prepare for an attack on Israel — though only a handful were there when the military arrived.
The tunnel had several emergency exits, which were normally covered above ground. When deciding to launch an assault, the Radwan Force terrorists would potentially leave the tunnel from the various exits that led to open areas in the Lebanese village, and from there head toward the Israeli border, according to the IDF.
As we walked through the subterranean passages, low thuds could be heard from Israeli airstrikes as well as Hezbollah rocket attacks.
Along the wide corridors of the underground site were doorways leading to dozens of rooms, including an armory, food storage, living quarters, showers, generator rooms and kitchens. Reporters were given a tour of several hundred meters of the tunnel, as other sections were not deemed safe enough at the time.
In one of the rooms, dozens of weapons were being stored, including AK-47 assault rifles, explosive devices, RPGs and launchers, sniper rifles and anti-tank guided missiles and launchers. Next to the weapons were stacks of canned food, from chocolate spread and halva to pickled olives.
“Everything here is ready ahead of the action they planned to carry out in Israel. It’s a warehouse ready for the day the order is given,” said the commander of the Paratroopers Brigade’s 890th Battalion, Lt. Col. Yoni Hacohen, who participated in the raid on the tunnel complex.
The commander said that capturing the “strategic” site was a “huge victory” for his forces.
Some of the rooms reporters were able to enter resembled galleries or halls, with high ceilings of around four meters, large enough for well over 100 people to stay in comfortably.
“As you can see, it is a big room, with electricity, places for lockers, mattresses, anything that is needed to reside in. In the hallway, there were toilets and showers. Everything needed for an enemy Radwan company to prepare, reside here, and head from here to an attack on Israel,” Hacohen said.
As we strode through the tunnel’s main hallway, officers warned us to watch our step, as Hezbollah had left behind weapons strewn on the ground. “Don’t touch, don’t step, don’t play around, don’t do anything,” the battalion commander said.
Grenades, assault rifles, RPGs and mines were seen along the ground. In one of the living quarters, an AK-type gun and a grenade were left on a bed.
Several days before reporters were brought to the site, troops of the Paratroopers Brigade, with support from tank forces and combat engineers, raided the village above the network and searched for the shafts leading into it.
Levy said that the army had prior intelligence regarding the underground site and some of the shafts, and his forces were able to quickly reach it during the assault.
Over the course of around 48 hours, the troops battled Hezbollah operatives around the village, including a cell stationed at the main entrance to the tunnel system which the military believes was responsible for guarding the underground site.
Another cell of four Hezbollah operatives was killed by troops in another, smaller tunnel in the village.
After troops entered the passages, removed booby traps — including a claymore-style mine planted on the ceiling in one of the hallways — and breached Hezbollah’s heavy blast doors, the site was mapped out by combat engineers, ahead of its planned demolition.
“We came here with intelligence. This is a central target, among many other targets that the division has operated against and destroyed in recent days,” Levy said.
“We will stay here until the site is destroyed completely and it no longer poses a threat to the residents of the north,” the general added.
“They won’t be able to launch an attack from here on our towns.”
Update: On Saturday morning, using 400 tons of explosives, the underground base was blown up.
The subterranean explosion was so massive that it was registered as an earthquake, setting off alarms across northern Israel.
