Israel Says Has Uncovered All Hezbollah Border Tunnels

  • 1/13/2019
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Israel announced Sunday that it has uncovered all tunnels dug by Hezbollah from Lebanon. "We have found yet another Hezbollah cross-border attack tunnel from Lebanon to Israel," Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Conricus told reporters of the operation that began on December 4. "According to our intelligence and our assessment of the situation there are no longer any cross-border attack tunnels from Lebanon into Israel." The latest tunnel, found on Saturday, began in the Lebanese village of Ramyeh, some 800 meters (yards) away from Israel, the army said. It reached a few dozen meters into Israel, and at 55 meters under the ground was the deepest as well as "the longest and most detailed" of all the tunnels the army exposed, Conricus said. The latest tunnel was the sixth revealed to the public and the army said its discovery marked the end of the operation dubbed by the army "Northern Shield". The tunnel would be destroyed in the coming days, Conricus said, adding that while more tunnels still existed on the Lebanese side of the border, this effectively marked the end of the ambitious military operation. "We have achieved the goal that we set out to achieve a month and a half ago," he said. "According to our intelligence, there are no longer any cross-border attack tunnels into Israel." He also reiterated that Israel holds the Lebanese government accountable "for any act of violence or violation of 1701," the UN resolution that ended the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah. UNIFIL, the UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon, was informed of the latest tunnel, Conricus said. Israel alleges Hezbollah had planned to use the tunnels to kidnap or kill its civilians or soldiers, and to seize a slice of Israeli territory in the event of any hostilities. It has said, however, that they were not yet operational. In the wake of its discoveries, Israel has asked the international community to impose tough sanctions on Hezbollah and begin to act against its state-within-a-state operation in Lebanon. News of the operations conclusion comes in the final week of Israels outgoing military chief Lt. Gen. Gadi Eisenkots four-year tenure. The latest discovery, coupled with a weekend strike against Iranian and Hezbollah sites near the Damascus International Airport that is attributed to Israel, was perceived in Israeli media as Eisenkots "parting shot" as he leaved office. He gave a series on interviews over the weekend summarizing his term and focusing on shifting the Israeli militarys attention toward Iran directly instead of just engaging its lesser proxies, Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza. In a New York Times interview published on Friday Eisenkot said that Israel "has struck thousands of targets without claiming responsibility or asking for credit" as part of a shadow showdown with Qassim Soleimani, the commander of Irans elite Quds Force.

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