IDF dismantles underground Hezbollah terror compound, fills it with concrete

Troops from the IDF’s 36th Division, in cooperation with special units and the Intelligence Directorate, located and destroyed an extensive underground Hezbollah compound hidden under a cemetery in southern Lebanon in a seven-day operation, the military said in a statement Sunday evening. 

The units were working on a week-long operation to locate and destroy Hezbollah's underground facilities when they discovered the entrance to the hidden compound.

Once inside, the troops discovered command rooms, living quarters, and weapon storage facilities filled with weapons and combat equipment - all ready to be used to infiltrate Israel, most likely as part of Hezbollah’s plan to conquer the Galilee region. 

During the operation, the Shaldag Unit identified several tunnel shafts leading into the compound, which led to the exposure of the full tunnel system. The operation was a cooperation between troops of the 36th Division, the Yahalom Unit, the Golani Brigade, the 282nd Brigade, and the 605th Engineering Battalion. 

The troops first investigated the full compound and tunnel system, which extended approximately one kilometer in length, reached approximately two meters in height and was located about one mile from the Israeli border. The tunnel did not extend into Israeli territory. 

Unlike other underground terror compounds and tunnels that have been destroyed by controlled demolitions, this compound was destroyed in an extensive logistical and engineering operation designed to seal the site completely. During the operation, hundreds of trucks and concrete mixers poured approximately 4,500 cubic meters (approximately 159,000 cubic feet) of concrete into the underground terror compound. 

Saudi news site Al Arabiya reported on Sunday afternoon that Hezbollah commander Salim Jalim Ayyash, convicted of assassinating former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, was killed in an Israeli strike in Syria. 

Ayyash, who fled Lebanon after the assassination, was convicted in absentia by the UN Special Tribunal for Lebanon in 2020 for the assassination of Hariri on Feb. 14, 2005. 

The U.S. government had offered a $10 million reward for information leading to Ayyash’s capture, saying he was also involved in efforts to harm U.S. government personnel. 

The website cited unconfirmed reports from Syria that Ayyash was killed in an Israel Air Force strike on a Hezbollah facility near the western Syrian city of Qusayr, close to the border with Lebanon, on Nov. 9. 

In keeping with its usual policy, Israel did not comment on the strike. 

The strike was reported by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), an opposition-linked NGO that monitors the violence in Syria. 

SOHR reported that Israel had struck sites in Syria eight times in the first nine days of November, killing at least 25 members of Hezbollah or other Iranian-backed proxies.