IDF says it has begun dismantling Hezbollah tunnel network found in southern Lebanon

The Israeli military (IDF) says it has discovered a web of tunnels in southern Lebanon used by the militant group Hezbollah.

Israel says it is in the process of dismantling the tunnels to prevent Hezbollah using them as a launchpad to attack Israel, in a similar way to the Hamas incursion last year which sparked the war in Gaza.

The IDF said it has spent the past two weeks combing southern Lebanon to uncover what it says are Hezbollah’s deep attack capabilities, highlighted by a tunnel system equipped with weapons caches and rocket launchers that Israel says pose a direct threat to nearby communities.

In a post on X, the IDF said more than 50 tunnel shafts and other 'terrorist infrastructure' had been destroyed and a cache of weapons including landmines and anti-tank missiles had been seized.

Israel's war against the Iran-backed militant group stretches far inside Lebanon and its air strikes in recent weeks have killed more than 1,700 people, about a quarter of whom were women and children, according to local health authorities.

But its ground campaign, launched on 30 September, has centred on a narrow patch of land just along the border, where Hezbollah has had a longstanding presence and where many of the group's supporters are based.

The Gaza-based militant group Hamas, with which Hezbollah is ideologically aligned, also maintains a labyrinth of underground tunnels and on Saturday, the IDF published video it says shows the group's former leader, Yahya Sinwar, using them to flee the West Bank on the day before the 7 October attack on Israel.

The IDF said the footage, reportedly filmed on 6 October, showed Sinwar and his wife and children using the tunnels to move items such as mattresses, water bottles and other objects.

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