The office of Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, announced this Thursday that the Army has managed to destroy the network of tunnels used by the Shiite militia party Hezbollah in the strategic ridge of Ali Taher, located in the Lebanese district of Nabatiyé, after a week of military operations aimed at "clearing" this infrastructure.
"According to the guidelines of the Prime Minister and the Minister of Defense (Israel Katz), the Israeli Army has destroyed the underground infrastructures of the terrorist organization Hezbollah in the ridge of Ali Taher, thus completing the organization of the security zone in southern Lebanon," it stated in a statement.
Israeli authorities describe this network as a "strategic infrastructure built over two decades, financed and designed by the Iranian terrorist regime," which would have allowed Hezbollah to have an operational base for "the conquest of Galilee" --referring to the historic mountainous region north of Israel-- and to monitor the movements of Israeli forces in Metula and Kiryat Shmona.
"Its destruction completes the achievement of operational control in the ridge of Ali Taher: above and below the ground," expressed Netanyahu's office, just a week after the Israel Defense Forces communicated that they had begun work to reinforce security in the two underground routes located on this hill.
These advances are known after the Israeli forces took the strategic Beaufort castle, on the banks of the Litani River and known as Qalat al Shaqif, one of the main scenarios of the Lebanon War of 1982, where intense fighting occurred between the Israeli Army and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).
The context of these operations is framed within the preliminary agreement reached on June 26 between Lebanon and Israel, with mediation from the United States, which establishes the foundations for a permanent ceasefire. The understanding includes the restoration of Lebanese sovereignty in the south of the country and the disarmament of Hezbollah, a demand that the group outright rejects amid the dynamics of cross-attacks between both parties.