The Israel Defense Forces completed its mission to dismantle Hezbollah’s underground beneath the Ali al-Taher Ridge in southeastern Lebanon before the eve of Rosh Hashanah, IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir said on Friday.
Visiting the troops of the IDF’s 36th Armored Division in the area where the operation was finished the previous day, Zamir said that the central command, control and combat infrastructure of Hezbollah, built with Iranian assistance, was destroyed, dealing a heavy blow to the Iranian proxy terrorist group.
The Israeli military will not allow Hezbollah to rebuild its capabilities and reestablish itself in the area, Zamir stated.
“We will defend our communities at any cost—the IDF stands as a shield on the front line. Any attack on the communities in northern Israel or on the IDF troops defending them will be met with an immediate and forceful response,” he continued.
Zamir stressed that the Yellow Line, which delineates the area under Israeli control in Southern Lebanon and stretches north of the border from the Mediterranean Sea to the Mount Hermon area, “remains fully under our [IDF] operational control, with no change.”
The IDF chief turned to Beirut, referencing the U.S.-brokered framework agreement aimed at disarming Hezbollah and ending the Israel-Lebanon conflict, signed on June 26, saying that the Lebanese Armed Forces “must demonstrate effectiveness on the ground. Otherwise, it will not be possible to advance the agreement.”
The trilateral agreement specifies the requirement to disarm all terrorist groups in Lebanon, after which Israeli forces would withdraw to the border.
Zamir lambasted Hezbollah, saying that it is “destroying Lebanon as an emissary of the Iranian regime. ... Hezbollah was the one that initiated and launched a war against Israel in the northern arena” following the cross-border Hamas-led massacre in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
“Any village in which terrorist infrastructure is established and terrorists are present is putting itself at risk,” the general said. “Look at what happened in Qantara and Majdal Zoun: Entire villages were damaged because an underground terrorist city was built beneath civilian homes. Look at what happened on Ali al-Taher Ridge—how many resources Hezbollah invested at the expense of Lebanese civilians. Resources that have gone to waste,” he said.
Zamir hailed the IDF troops for their “courage, determination, dedication to the mission, and constant drive to achieve decisive results in accordance with the objective.”
He added that “our troops located advanced weapons, manufactured in Iran, inside the sites, intended to harm IDF troops and the communities in northern Israel.”
Base intended for Hezbollah’s conquest of the Galilee
On Thursday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz announced that Hezbollah’s sprawling underground infrastructure under the Ali al-Taher Ridge had been destroyed, with the IDF completing the consolidation of the security zone along Israel’s northern border.
The infrastructure, built over two decades with Iranian funding and planning, was intended to serve as a staging base for Hezbollah’s planned conquest of the Galilee, according to the joint statement.
The command center on the ridge provided Hezbollah with observation and fire control over the northern Israeli communities of Metula and Kiryat Shmona.
“Their destruction completes the achievement of operational control over the Ali al-Taher Ridge, above and below ground,” Netanyahu and Katz said.
According to an Israeli military official, the underground network consisted of eight routes with a combined length of more than 5,400 meters (17,700 feet).
