Viral video shows Israeli soldiers using medieval-like catapult to launch fireballs over northern border

Hezbollah is known to use densely vegetated areas to hide its activities

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Video footage showing Israeli soldiers using a catapult to shoot fireballs over concrete barriers at the border with Lebanon went viral on Thursday morning.

The astonishing footage caused widespread confusion and astonishment at the use of what appeared to be a medieval trebuchet in the battle against the Hezbollah forces in Lebanon.

בתיעוד הזה נראית שיטה חדשה שבה משתמשים חיילי צה"ל בגבול הצפון: "בליסטרה" (בימים שלפני המצאת התותח אי שם לפני הספירה) להצתת אש מעבר למכשול בגבול לבנון. בצה"ל אמרו שמדובר ביוזמה מקומית ולא בכלי שנכנס לשימוש נרחב

השטח בגבול לבנון מאופיין בבולדרים וסבך, צמחיית קוצים צפופה, שמהווה… pic.twitter.com/ukgn27opHd
— איתי בלומנטל 🇮🇱 Itay Blumental (@ItayBlumental) June 13, 2024

The video also comes against the background of numerous wildfires in Israel caused by Hezbollah attacks over the past few days.

“The Lebanon border area has dense vegetation which poses a challenge to Israeli forces deployed to the area,” explained Emanuel Fabian, military correspondent for The Times of Israel.

“It is believed such fires are intended to aid the army in identifying terrorists trying to infiltrate into Israel or carry out other attacks,” he added on 𝕏.

“The IDF said that this was a local initiative and not a tool that entered widespread use,” Itay Blumental, the military correspondent for KAN News commented.

“The area at the Lebanese border is characterized by boulders and brush, dense thorny vegetation, which poses a challenge to the IDF forces deployed in defense. It can be estimated that the burning of the thorns and vegetation across the border was intended to expose the area to facilitate the identification of terrorists who would try to reach the border and even to prepare for a ground maneuver into Lebanon,” Blumental added.

The landscape of southern Lebanon is characterized by dense undergrowth, which Hezbollah has used for the past decades to build and hide underground networks including launch sites for rockets and anti-tank missiles, headquarters, observation posts, and weapons depots.

Israel Defense Forces has sarcastically dubbed these installations “nature reserves,” and has largely avoided those areas after suffering heavy casualties during the Second Lebanon War in 2006.

Hezbollah has also used Green Without Borders (GWB), supposedly an environmental organization, as a cover to build infrastructure hidden in nature across southern Lebanon.

The U.S. Treasury Department has designated the group and its leader as terrorism supporters and confirmed what Israel has said for several years, that GWB “has served as a cover for Hizballah’s activities in southern Lebanon along the Blue Line.”

It further stated that GWB established “outposts manned by Hizballah operatives in more than a dozen locations,” which have “impeded United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon peacekeepers from fulfilling their UN Security Council (UNSC) mandate to monitor the implementation of UNSC Resolution 1701.”

Most of the observation posts, which the group says are for spotting forest fires, are located within meters of the border with Israel.