Hezbollah plans to replicate its own “October 7-style” attack on Israel to seize the northern region of Galilee, the Israel Defense Forces, which launched a ground invasion of Hezbollah strongholds on Monday, claimed. Claims of a ground invasion by Israel are denied by Hezbollah, but the Lebanese government calls it “one of the most dangerous moments in history.”
The October 7 attack by the Palestinian Hamas group sparked a deadly Middle East crisis that spread to Hezbollah-controlled Lebanon. Israel, which is battling Hezbollah in the north and Hamas in the south, claims the Lebanese group has used border villages to launch a new offensive it calls Operation “Conquest of Galilee.”
“Conquer Galilee”
The region of Galilee is located in the north of Israel and is known for the Sea of Galilee, where Jesus Christ is believed to have walked on water. It is a mountainous and fertile region that stretches from the coastal plains to the shores of the Mediterranean Sea. Israel claims Hezbollah rocket attacks in the northern region have forced about 60,000 Israelis from their homes and that it is now seeking to rehabilitate them.
IDF spokesman Maj. Gen. Daniel Hagari said Hezbollah has openly declared plans to carry out even larger scale massacres like the one on October 7 on Israel’s northern border. He said he was declassifying Israeli operations into Lebanon while digging tunnels and stockpiling weapons under houses in border villages to facilitate Israeli plans.
In this operation, Israeli forces entered dozens of Hezbollah compounds and dismantled Hezbollah infrastructure. The raid exposed Hezbollah’s hidden weapons cache, while more than 700 Hezbollah terrorist assets were dismantled, the spokesperson said.
Here are three such operations carried out by Israeli operations.
Mais El Jabal
The Lebanese village of Meis El Jabal is located just a few hundred meters from the Israeli city of Kiryat Shmona. Israel claims that more than 20,000 residents have had to evacuate the city due to Hezbollah attacks, and that Lebanese residents have also had to evacuate due to “terrorist activities.” There is.
According to Maj. Gen. Hagari, the Israeli military said Hezbollah operatives had dug underground infrastructure to store weapons under houses in the village. They had planned this as a staging area before invading Israeli territory, he added.
An elevated platform was built beneath the house to hide a shaft leading to an underground tunnel. An Israeli spokesman said the tunnel, 150 meters long and cut out of stone, was demolished by ground and air strikes.
Kfarkera
Like Mais el-Jabal, Kfarkera is a border village just a few hundred meters from Metura, Israel. In Kfarkera, Israeli forces targeted the house in a raid that exposed a tunnel under the bed in the children’s room.
“Soldiers entered the tunnel shaft and uncovered a 100 meter long underground tunnel carved out of stone. The soldiers searched the tunnel and discovered weapons stored in barrels. In one of the rooms, “Weapons storage facilities that were to be used were exposed by Hezbollah on the day of the planned invasion,” Maj. Gen. Hagari said.
Nurit
Nurit is located between the Israeli border and the Lebanese village of Ait al-Shaab. The Israelis targeted what they said were Hezbollah targets, including military outposts and rocket launchers in the village. Here, the IDF discovered a “Hezbollah combat facility” containing combat trenches both above and below ground. “This network of trenches is connected to underground tunnels containing weapons storage facilities, command and control centers, and preparation and living spaces for Hezbollah terrorists,” Hagari said.
The spokesman said Israeli soldiers had stormed a combat trench atop a mountain and discovered an access point to an underground tunnel route to the Lebanese village of Ait al-Shaab. Israel claimed to have detected numerous weapons in the tunnel by sound.
Hagari said they also found maps on Hezbollah’s premises that the group was planning to give to its operatives before its “Conquest of Galilee” invasion. The map marked Israeli communities, IDF garrisons, access roads, and attack targets.