BEIRUT: Israel said on Thursday it destroyed what it described as a major Hezbollah tunnel network beneath the Ali Al-Taher ridge in southern Lebanon, an operation Israeli leaders said completed the establishment of a \u201csecurity zone\u201d in the area.<\/p>\n
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz said in a joint statement that the operation targeted underground infrastructure belonging to Hezbollah, the Iran-backed Lebanese militant group.<\/p>\n
A large explosion was heard in surrounding communities during the demolition. Videos circulating on social media, reportedly filmed from nearby Israeli-occupied areas, appeared to show a massive blast.<\/p>\n
The Israeli military said it used more than 1,100 tons of explosives to destroy the tunnel complex, Israeli media reported.<\/p>\n
The blast also registered as a magnitude 4.1 seismic event about 13 kilometers west-southwest of Nabatiyeh, according to the US Geological Survey.<\/p>\n
Israeli officials described the site as a strategic Hezbollah network built over two decades with Iranian financing and planning. They said it included a command center and other facilities intended to support a possible Hezbollah incursion into Israel\u2019s Galilee region.<\/p>\n
The network also provided observation and fire-control capabilities overlooking the northern Israeli communities of Metulla and Kiryat Shmona, according to the statement by Netanyahu and Katz.<\/p>\n
The destruction of the complex gave Israeli forces operational control of the Ali Al-Taher ridge \u201cabove and below ground,\u201d Netanyahu and Katz said.<\/p>\n
They added that Israeli troops would remain in the \u201csecurity zone,\u201d continue to destroy Hezbollah infrastructure and seek to prevent the group from rebuilding its capabilities.<\/p>\n
The Israeli military said the tunnels beneath Ali Al-Taher served as the \u201cnerve center\u201d for Hezbollah\u2019s Badr unit, which it said was responsible for an area of southern Lebanon north of the Litani River.<\/p>\n
Hezbollah did not immediately comment on the Israeli claims.<\/p>\n
Last week, the Israeli military said it had completed operations to seize and clear the tunnel network.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BEIRUT: Israel said on Thursday it destroyed what it described as a major Hezbollah tunnel network beneath the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":612316,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[85,46,43],"class_list":["post-612315","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/612315","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=612315"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/612315\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/612316"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=612315"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=612315"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=612315"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}