Watch: Israel destroys Hezbollah tunnels and infrastructure in southern Lebanon

Footage purportedly shows special forces dismantling hideaways and weaponry

Israeli special forces have been operating in southern Lebanon since November last year, pinpointing and destroying Hezbollah tunnels and infrastructure close to its border.
In a briefing for journalists held at the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) northern command headquarters in Kirat Sarah on Tuesday, a senior officer with direct knowledge of the operations said Israeli commandos had spent “hundreds” of days and nights in Lebanon over the last 10 months dismantling Hezbollah hideaways and weaponry.
The briefing came just hours after Israel announced it had launched a “limited, localised and targeted” ground incursion into southern Lebanon using tanks, jeeps and other conventional troops.
With the media unable to access the front line just some 10km away, journalists were instead shown an assortment of weapons, intelligence and other materials gathered by commandos on undercover raids into Lebanon since November 2023.
Journalists were led down a replica Hezbollah tunnel built by the IDF “to give a sense of what they are like” – very similar to the tunnels built by Hamas but dug from soil and rock, not sand.
Video footage captured by the soldiers from head and body cameras was also “declassified” and distributed as was footage of air strikes on tunnels and other infrastructure the commandos had located.
“These operations were conducted in order to dismantle the military capabilities of Hezbollah’s Radwan Forces and prevent it from carrying out its October 7th-style ‘Conquer the Galilee’ plan for an invasion into northern Israel,” said the IDF in a statement.
The officer giving the briefing said surreptitious raids over the border had started cautiously in November but gathered pace once it had become clear that Hezbollah’s elite Radwan forces had pulled back from positions close to the border to a “second line” of defence.
In the early days of the conflict following Oct 7, hundreds of these fighters were killed as they launched shoulder-launched anti-tank rockets into Israeli border communities, resulting in more than 63,000 Israeli having to leave their homes.
The officer said there had been “no firefights or other direct engagement” with Hezbollah’s forces on the ground, although two militiamen died in an explosion when they entered a tunnel that Israeli special forces had previously cleared and mined.
“We knew there was a good chance we would not meet the enemy face to face,” he said.
“More than 70” separate infiltration operations took place along the 75km Israel-Lebanon border with typical missions involving around 20 men, he added.
Hezbollah’s most extensive tunnelling and other infrastructure was found in “villages and heavily forested areas” – locations that proved good natural cover.
In several cases, tunnels running hundreds of metres, equipped with sleeping and cooking facilities as well as weapons, explosives and ammunition, were entered from shafts dug within residents’ homes.
In one instance, the entry to a tunnel was hidden under a child’s bed, the officer said. In others, rucksacks packed with military uniform and kit were found lined up in tunnels so that Hezbollah fighters could travel to their muster points without attracting attention, the IDF said.
The close proximity to the Israeli border of the infrastructure and the type of weapons uncovered indicate that Hezbollah had been planning an October 7 style assault on northern Israel, the IDF claimed.
It was stymied, said a spokesman, because the IDF was quick to reinforce its northern border immediately after Oct 7.
“We are not talking about a defensive part of the Hezbollah operation here,” said the briefing officer, adding that the Radwan forces were thought to be on a “six hour standby time” should the order have been given for an attack.
Weapons uncovered and displayed included assault rifles, anti-tank missiles, assault rifles, belt-fed machine guns, improvised explosive devices and anti-vehicle and personnel mines.
The officer said that more than 10,000 elite Radwan Hezbollah fighters continued to pose a threat. “I would guess they have fallen back to a second line and are re-planning,” he said.
Nevertheless, what the Israeli special forces had achieved was “unprecedented in the history of Israel”, he added. 
There was little reliable or definitive news on the progress of the IDF’s main land incursion.
At around 2am on Tuesday morning, the IDF said it began ground raids “based on precise intelligence” against Hezbollah terrorist targets and infrastructure in southern Lebanon.
Like the special force’s targets, the new targets were said to be located in villages close to the border that “pose an immediate threat to Israeli communities in northern Israel”.
The Israeli Air Force and IDF Artillery were supporting the ground forces with many strikes said to be taking place on military targets in the area.
“These operations were approved and carried out in accordance with the decision of the political echelon” said the IDF in a statement.
“Operation ‘Northern Arrows’ will continue according to the situational assessment and in parallel to combat in Gaza and in other arenas.”
Escalation was not limited to the Israeli side. Hezbollah fired rockets into northern and central Israel for much of the day, with one rocket hitting a motorway and injuring several people about an hour above Tel Aviv.
Then in Jaffa, Tel Aviv, on Tuesday evening gunmen shot and killed at least seven people on the city’s beachfront.
An already tense situation across the country was made worse by US briefings saying that Iran was preparing to launch a ballistic missile strike on the Jewsish state.
Just an hour afterwards air raid sirens started to sound across Tel Aviv and large parts of Israel.
As people were sheltering, Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister, added: “Citizens of Israel, we are in the midst of a campaign against Iran’s axis of evil. Yesterday, I said that these were days of great achievements… But there are also great challenges.”