At first glance, the scene has an almost rudimentary, amateurish feel. The rock is hard and jagged. Traces and scratches from heavy digging equipment stain the walls.
They almost look like caves – but these are Hezbollah’s ‘terror tunnels’ and like the group itself, they are sophisticated, powerful and deadly. A year after the October 7 atrocities, it is clear that murder comes to Israel not only from the skies, but also from what lies beneath.
Last week, the IDF revealed that even before troops crossed the border into Lebanon on October 1, Israeli special forces had carried out dozens of operations in the south of the country to destroy Hezbollah’s tunnels. The threat of Hamas tunnels is better known and much of the work in Gaza in recent months has been trying to eliminate them. Now Israel is trying to tackle an even bigger threat in the north.
At a press conference on Tuesday, Admiral Daniel Hagari reported that Israeli forces, following an attack on a Hezbollah complex, had discovered a map to be used by terrorists during an invasion of northern Israel called Operation Conquer The Galilee.
“As you can see, there is a legend that marks Israeli settlements,” Hagari said, holding the map up to the camera. ‘IDF posts, access roads and attack targets that Hezbollah planned to capture.
A year after the October 7 atrocities, it is clear that murder comes to Israel not only from the skies, but also from what lies beneath. (Israeli forces are pictured in Hezbollah tunnels)
An Israeli army soldier holds open the door to the entrance of a tunnel dug by the Lebanese Islamic political party Hezbollah and militant group
“This map would be used by thousands of Hezbollah terrorists on the day of the order to raid the territory of the State of Israel, as Hamas did on October 7.”
The Israelis are not willing to risk a second such catastrophe at the hands of Hezbollah. Yesterday, Iran’s Supreme Leader, who funds Hezbollah, described the October 7 atrocities as a “justified act.”
One IDF attack took place in the southern Lebanese village of Ayta ash Shab. Here it found dozens of underground shafts and tunnels, some 25 meters deep, with rocket launchers and ten ammunition depots. It was clear evidence of what Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had told the UN in late September: that Hezbollah “has secretly dug terror tunnels to infiltrate our communities and indiscriminately fired thousands of rockets into our cities and towns.” An enormous amount of time, money and sweat has gone into building this terrifying network on Israel’s northern border.
In 2021, the Alma Research and Education Center estimated that Hezbollah’s tunnels span “hundreds of kilometers” and, like Hamas’s, contain “underground command and control rooms, weapons and supply depots, field clinics, and specified designated shafts used to deliver missiles to fire. of all kinds’.
In fact, Alma estimated its size to be “significantly larger” than the network that criss-crosses Gaza – the so-called “Hamas metro,” itself estimated to be longer than the London underground.
The IDF estimates that before the war, the Hamas network spanned at least 300 kilometers with a depth of between 15 and 60 meters, with the average tunnel being more than 1.8 meters high and 9 meters wide. In 2020, the IDF found a tunnel 70 meters deep.
The costs were also enormous. In August 2014, the Israeli army destroyed 32 Hamas tunnels estimated to have cost $90 million (£69 million) to build.
The average tunnel required 350 truckloads of building materials – enough to build 86 houses.
Israeli special forces have carried out dozens of operations in the south of the country to destroy Hezbollah’s tunnels. (An Israeli soldier at a tunnel dug by the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah)
Israeli special forces have conducted more than 70 operations in southern Lebanon over the past year, spending hundreds of days and more than 200 nights in Lebanon
Hamas began experimenting with tunnels into Egypt in the late 1990s, while Hezbollah only adopted the tactic after the 2006 war with Israel. The two groups have exchanged information and shared techniques around tunnel warfare for years.
According to Dr. Daphne Richemond-Barak, professor at Israel’s Reichman University and author of Underground Warfare: ‘There is electricity and ventilation. Some contain sleeping quarters, with mattresses, refrigerators and a kitchen. There are also military bases with all the necessary equipment. It is all aimed at being able to remain underground for a longer period of time.
“I have no doubt that the ground invasion in Lebanon at this time is linked to the tunnels.”
The tunnels even connect major cities. It may be beyond the IDF’s ability to take out the entire network, but at least the tunnels in the south of the country must be taken care of.
It will be a long process. In Gaza, the IDF tunnellers faced a series of obstacles, not least Hamas’ booby traps. It is dangerous work, but Israel must understand how its enemy is using this increasingly strategic form of warfare.
Israel has previously tried to tackle Hezbollah’s tunnel network. In December 2018, the IDF launched Operation Northern Shield to destroy the tunnels used in cross-border attacks into Israel.
In late January 2019, after finding six tunnels, IDF spokesman Jonathan Conricus said: “according to our intelligence and our assessment of the situation, there are no more cross-border attack tunnels from Lebanon to Israel.”
Even though Conricus’ words smacked of hubris, the size and sophistication of the then destroyed tunnel network were inescapably clear. The IDF discovered a tunnel 80 meters deep (equivalent to a 22-story building) near the northern Israeli city of Zarit.
Documentation of a Hezbollah underground tunnel as IDF forces entered Ayta Ash Shab, southern Lebanon
The tunnels even connect major cities. It may be beyond the IDF’s ability to take out the entire network, but at least the tunnels in the south of the country must be taken care of. (The inside of a Hezbollah tunnel)
Another, which started in the village of Ramyeh, was 55 meters deep and ran 750 meters through Lebanese territory until it reached “tens of meters” of Israel. The tunnel had ‘a railway system and a passageway that allowed the movement of military equipment’.
What makes all this even more chilling is that Hezbollah’s tunnel network was built with help from North Korea. According to Richemond-Barak, “Hezbollah’s tunnels were built as huge invasion tunnels and are reminiscent of what North Korea planned to do to South Korea. We have evidence that the North Koreans have met Hezbollah – and the results here are clear.” Alma says the tunnels were also built with the help of Iranian companies – including those linked to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
In a video released by Hezbollah in August, the tunnel walls are littered with posters of former Iranian Quds Force commander Qasem Soleimani (killed by the Americans in a drone strike in January 2020) and Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah (murdered last month). in Beirut by Israeli aircraft).
The Iranian regime itself is the master of the underground world. The country has long experience with building deep underground, mainly to hide its nuclear installations. Hezbollah has learned from Tehran. It is building bigger and deeper tunnels and hiding its most strategic assets in them – just like the Iranians do.
There’s something about the underground world, terrorists and rogue states.
ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was cornered and killed in a tunnel; Saddam Hussein was found hiding in one of them; and Osama bin Laden escaped American capture many times by using tunnels.
And of course, the Israelis killed Nasrallah while he was deep underground in his bunker (it’s likely the last thing he saw before he died was Benjamin Netanyahu’s UN speech).
Nasrallah was 20 meters below Beirut and he couldn’t make it. F-15s used 2,000-pound Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAMs) that penetrated deep into their targets before exploding. Israeli military sources tell me that the air force used a number of these bunker-busting bombs one after another to blast themselves deep into the earth.
Nasrallah’s assassination was not just a tactical masterstroke, it was a message to Iran: no matter how deep you or your allies dig, we will get you.
After Nasrallah’s death, the Iranians knew they had to respond. They decided to launch about 180 ballistic missiles at Tel Aviv and central Israel. Fortunately, the attack largely failed. The only death was that of a Palestinian man in the West Bank, which is undeniably tragic, but a far cry from the mass casualties Iran wanted.
When Iran launched these attacks, it took its step on the geopolitical chessboard.
Now it is Israel’s turn.