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Israel reveals discovery of third Hezbollah attack tunnel from Lebanon

Israel reveals discovery of third Hezbollah attack tunnel from Lebanon

Also, Hezbollah operatives approaching anti-tunnel operation scared off with warning shots.

Hezbollah had an extensive program to built attack tunnels capable of transferring large numbers of terrorists into northern Israel in a short amount of time.

The project, if ever used in war, would have allowed Hezbollah to score a short-term military, and long-term propaganda, victory by seizing towns and territory within Israel. Hezbollah many times has threatened to take the ground war into Israel, and tunnels were to play a key role as they do for Hamas in Gaza.

Several days ago Israel launched Operation Northern Shield to reveal to the world the cross-border tunnels, and to destroy what was found. We covered the operation in these prior posts:

Amos Harel at Haaretz discusses how the anti-tunnel operation came to be:

When Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah first began issuing threats about his organization’s intention “to conquer the Galilee” in the next war, Israel was initially dismissive. But after Nasrallah kept saying the same thing in public, Israel’s military intelligence seriously set about trying to decipher his meaning.

Why would Nasrallah boast in this way when the most his organization could hope to do was send a few cells of attackers across the border for a surprise attack on a single community? Even Hezbollah couldn’t turn a few rocket barrages on the Israeli home front into a victory photo.

The answer gradually became clear only after the 2014 Gaza war. Israel realized that Hezbollah was aiming to copy the Hamas model of attack tunnels, in a slightly different form.

The tunnels it dug, which apparently were fewer in number and shorter, were designed to meet the specific needs of the northern front: the quick and secret transfer of hundreds of fighters from the outskirts of the villages in southern Lebanon into Israel, thus to lay the groundwork for a wider ground offensive that would immediately follow….

The effort to locate the tunnels, which was coordinated by army intelligence and the IDF Northern Command with the aid of technology and engineering units, covered a very extensive area along 130 kilometers of the border fence. It was some time before a breakthrough was achieved….

The IDF spent many months searching before it found the tunnel next to Metula, whose entry shaft on the Lebanese side was dug beneath a cement block factory in Kafr Kila. When the army noticed that the factory was not receiving materials but just transporting cargo from the site on trucks, it realized what was really going on there.

By the summer, conditions were ripe to launch an engineering operation. Brig. Gen. Dror Shalom, head of Military Intelligence’s research department, felt that more information was still needed to have the most accurate intelligence and be certain that the tunnels would be found.

In September, the planned operation was presented to Netanyahu and then, on November 7, to the cabinet. In the cabinet discussion, Lieberman said again that the threat was less urgent than portrayed by the army and that the most necessary move at this time was a ground incursion against Hamas in Gaza.

During the interlude, in October, Eisenkot traveled to the United States and presented the tunnel threat to the American administration for the first time. Netanyahu also discussed it early in the week at his meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in Brussels. The prime minister had many topics to discuss with Pompeo. The operation to locate the tunnels was first on the list.

Israel now has disclosed that it has uncovered a third attack tunnel built by Hezbollah from Lebanon across the border into Israel. The discovery was unveiled on Saturday, December 8, 2018, but the tunnel likely was discovered long ago and work to expose it began days ago.

Haaretz reports:

The Israeli army said on Saturday evening that it has identified another Hezbollah attack tunnel crossing into Israeli territory.

According to the Israel Defense Forces’ spokesperson Ronen Manelis, soldiers discovered upon entering the tunnel that it had been dug up until the past several days. “The tunnel is booby-trapped right now in a manner that would endanger the life of anyone attempting to enter it from the Lebanese side,” Manelis said.

The IDF spokesman also explained that the Israeli military is refraining from publishing the exact location of the tunnel so that it could learn more about its terrain. Manelis noted in a statement that the tunnel is situated in an area afflicted by difficult weather conditions, which have plagued Israel in recent days.

Manelis said in his statement that the tunnel was not prepared for military operations, “did not pose a danger and does not pose one now.”

This IDF video with Hebrew subtitles shows the anti-tunnel operations, believed to be the second of the tunnels exposed, and IDF soldiers placing explosives into a tunnel.

The Times of Israel further reports:

This fresh tunnel, whose location has been kept secret for security reasons, has been fitted with explosives in order to ensure that it cannot be used by the Iran-backed terror group Hezbollah, army spokesperson Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus told reporters.

According to the spokesman, excavation of the tunnel was being conducted until recently.

“It’s a fresh tunnel,” he said….

Saturday saw heavy rain and dense fog throughout Israel, turning the ground along the border where soldiers are operating to a thick mud. According to IDF officials, the inclement weather is making the army’s search efforts more difficult, but it is nevertheless continuing.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised the military for finding the new tunnel.

“Methodically and determinedly, we are destroying Hezbollah’s tunnel weapon. This action is just beginning and will require cool heads and patience. We will continue working until its end,” he said in a statement.

Hezbollah is watching this operation unfold, but had not yet taken any action to stop it. Three men believed to be Hezbollah operatives did try to approach one of the IDF teams, but fled when warning shots were fired:

The IDF fired warning shots across its tense Lebanese border to halt an attempted infiltration as it continued to publish information on a third Hezbollah attack tunnel….

On Saturday IDF troops spotted three suspicious figures attempting to approach the border area where the IDF was carrying out tunnel excavation work, Manelis told reporters.

“The troops opened fire on the suspects as per the rules of engagement,” Manlis said, explaining that the men who had taken advantage of the bad weather to steal IDF equipment, fled the area.

The IDF believes the three people could belong to Hezbollah but according to Lebanon’s National News Agency IDF troops opened fire on a Lebanese army patrol “because of heavy fog in the area.”

It may not take much to spark a wider conflict. If Hezbollah attacks the operation, or if Israel crosses the border, fighting could flare and then Israel would go after the ultimate target, Hezbollah’s Iranian-supplied missiles and missile factories.

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Comments

Part of me say Yes! find them all and show the world.

Another part would have them “miss” finding one or two of them, but actually countermine and booby trap the whole affair, then wait for the tunnel to be filled with terrorists & set it off.
Use enough explosives so it would resemble some of the enormous breaching explosions seen in World War 1 combat film.
Of course, then blame it on Hamas’ accidentally doing themselves in, which is not so far fetched a statement that Hamas wouldn’t think that’s what did happen.

Why use warning shots, it’s just wasting bullets at this point.

Yet there are “progressives” who believe Hamas is peaceful and innocent types, they wouldn’t be looking to harm Israel.

Israel needs to be ever vigilant, all the time, for any misses brings them a lot of harm.

I can sadly see similar going on with our own borders. Peaceful and harmless people look to enter countries legally, not by stealth.

God help Israel.

” . . . When the army noticed that the factory was not receiving materials but just transporting cargo from the site on trucks, it realized what was really going on there.”

This is great that the IDF continue to find tunnels and destroy/booby trap them.

The above quote seemed to be from the 2014 tunnel discoveries, but i don’t know why Israel would ever state the methodology of *how* they discovered the tunnels – in this case through the lack of outgoing shipments. Why not let Hezbollah continue to make these mistakes instead of advertising their “tell”?

    JusticeDelivered in reply to mochajava76. | December 11, 2018 at 11:58 am

    Israel needs to be doing much more than destroying tunnels. How about dropping say 1000 fuel air bombs per tunnel, throughout the areas in the vicinity of tunnels. Wars are ended by causing lots of death and property damage.

DouglasJBender | December 9, 2018 at 8:55 am

Wait until the tunnels are filled with terrorists, then do some extreme Biblical thumping with modern military technology.

This past August, Trump ‘cancelled more than $200m in U.S. aid for the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and West Bank.’

Also in August, ‘U.S. to End All Funding to U.N. Agency That Aids Palestinian Refugees.’

It was more than obvious to anyone with an IQ higher than their belt size that the Gaza government funneled much of those funds to Hamas in order to build attack tunnels and other terrorist operations to murder Jews.

Gee. I wonder when Trump will terminate funding of Hezbollah? Oh, that’s right. Iran funds them murderous bastages, and the previous president whatshisname green lit $150 BILLION int’l & U.S. dollars to flow into Iran’s bank account, in addition to air lifting millions in cash-on-pallets into Tehran.

But THAT’S not collusion or funding global terrorism. No sir.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/aug/25/donald-trump-cuts-more-than-200m-in-aid-to-palestinians

https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/08/28/middle-east-palestinian-israel-pompeo-trump-kushner-u-s-to-end-all-funding-to-u-n-agency-that-aids-palestinian-refugees/

Yep. I’m in the wait for the tunnels to fill with the barbaric enemies of civilization demonìc death cult bloodthirsty savages of Islam, and then cave the tunnels in with hidden explosives for instantaneous collapse and interment camp.

Totally.

Every dollar that these miserable, goose-stepping, supremacist and jihadist Arabs spend on terror tunnels, weapons and assorted equipment to fuel their jihadist bloodlust, is one less dollar spent on badly-needed civilian infrastructure, political stability and a foundation for economic self-sufficiency.

How much international aid have Hamas, PLO/Fatah and Hezb’allah spent, in their collective history, on jihadist aims? Hundreds of billions of dollars? Yet, Israel is blamed for their self-inflicted miseries and infantile belligerence? Please.

    Most creepy yet: those terrorist dollars are being spent right here in America.

    If the fraud of ‘barack hussein obama’ wasn’t enough to convince you, look who was newly elected to the 2019 Congress.

    If hillary klinton’s stupid books that ‘sold millions,’ yet no one seemed to actually buy them wasn’t enough, just look at moooochelle obma’s hate diatribe making its way to young people across the nation – inner city young people who could not afford to buy the hardcover book that’s ‘selling,’ yet they all seem to have in their possession.