The IDF said on Sunday that they uncovered a tunnel shaft near the Israel border in South Lebanon, in drone footage from the area. On Tuesday, the military said its forces located and dismantled a Hezbollah tunnel that crossed about 10 meters (33 feet) from Lebanon’s Marwahin area into Israeli territory near the community of Zar'it.
The IDF spokesperson said that troops found infrastructure built underground including living areas for terrorists and stores of weapons and equipment.
Troops capture Hezbollah terrorist in a tunnel shaft in S. Lebann
But residents of the north are not reassured. Yossi Adoni, mayor of Zarit, who has been living away from the border lining farming community, for a year, said that more tunnels are there. "We've reported on digging noises and activity across the border. We heard noises and sawdust coming out from time to time. More than once we saw people who would be walking on the paths through the fields and suddenly disappear," he said.
Gadi Shabtay, who was evacuated from his home on the border in Kibbutz Rosh HaNikra said he believed the threat had not been removed. "The army took all the findings and testimonies we had been collecting for years and gave ridiculous answers like 'what you hear is the noise of roots splitting the rock' or 'the noise of the cables on the antennas on the roof' or 'mice running in the sewer pipes' and many more strange responses." He said that had it not been for the Hamas assault on the South, the army would have still been in the dark. "We would have found ourselves invaded by Radwan's forces. Hezbollah has been preparing for 18 years," he said.
Like Shabtay, Attorney Eliyahu Ben Ezra from Rosh HaNikra also said that he warned about tunnels just before the October 7 massacre. "In 2019, I heard noises in the bedroom, and in 2020 during COVID, I was working from home and heard and recorded vibrations in the ground," he said. "In my opinion, not all the tunnels have been taken care of, and it will take a long time. In my opinion, the story will not end with one tunnel. We will not return until everything is eliminated.
"For years we knew and warned that something was happening there. For years I have been shouting that the northern border should be taken care of and an IDF force should be brought in to clean out the border, said Moshe Davidovitch, Chair of the Confrontation Line Forum of Northern Regional councils and the Head of a council in the Western Galilee said. "It is extremely lucky that the tunnels and the arsenal of weapons have now been found because it could have been a huge disaster that could have destroyed the State of Israel. The obvious conclusion is that we must listen to the local leadership and residents who are the eyes and ears of the state."
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