Mohammed Zaatari / Sahar Houri And Ghinwa Obeid| The Daily Star
KFAR KILA/BEIRUT: The Lebanese Army said it stood ready to respond to developments along the southern border Tuesday, hours after Israel announced that it started blocking tunnels allegedly dug by Hezbollah.
“In light of the Israeli enemy’s Northern Shield Operation, which is related to the alleged tunnels on the southern border, the Army Command assures that the situation is calm … and is being followed up on,” a statement from the Army reported.
“The command points out that the Army is fully ready to confront any emergency.”
Army units, the statement said, continued to conduct their usual missions in coordination with forces from the United Nations peacekeeping mission.
UNIFIL said in its own statement that its peacekeepers had further increased their patrolling along the Blue Line, in coordination with the Army “[in order to] maintain the overall stability and avoid misunderstandings that could lead to any escalation.” The statement added that “The overall situation in UNIFIL’s area of operation remains calm and UNIFIL is working with all interlocutors in order to maintain the overall stability.”
President Michel Aoun followed up on the developments in the south, calling on security agencies to keep abreast of the situation there.
He also contacted Speaker Nabih Berri, Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri and Army Commander Gen. Joseph Aoun to discuss the Israeli operation.
“During the phone calls, the situation was evaluated in light of the available information on the dimensions of the Israeli operation,” the statement said.
Aoun also met with U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon Elizabeth Richard.
Richard said they discussed the developments in the southern border region and affirmed her country’s support for Lebanon, the state-run National News Agency reported. Washington, however, expressed its support for the Israeli operation.President Donald Trump’s national security adviser John Bolton said that “the U.S. strongly supports Israel’s efforts to defend its sovereignty.”
“More broadly, we call on Iran and all of its agents to stop their regional aggression and provocation, which pose an unacceptable threat to Israeli and regional security,” Bolton said.
Bolton, however, made no mention of Israel’s almost daily violations of Lebanon’s sovereignty in recent years.
Hours earlier, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in Brussels. Netanyahu said he discussed the Israeli operation with Pompeo and called the tunnels a violation of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701 to end the 2006 Israeli war on Lebanon.
“Whoever tries to harm Israel’s security will pay dearly,” Netanyahu said in a statement. “We will continue with further activities, covert and overt, to ensure Israel’s security.”
Netanyahu said later in the day that Israel had made the decision to act against the tunnels “weeks ago” and moved into action Tuesday morning.
He added that the operation was a “small part” of a deployment on all fronts to defend Israel.
Despite the situation, people living near the southern border went about their day as usual, and schools in towns along the border remained open.
“During the night we heard sounds of vehicles, but we did not care,” Fatima Zbib, a resident of the Kfar Kila border town, told The Daily Star.
“Our children went to school in the morning, and by the afternoon there were [Israeli] army personnel with weapons while the excavators dug.
“[As if] they will find anything.”
On the Lebanese side, UNIFIL forces watched the Israeli operations while taking notes, and the Lebanese Army carried out routine patrols in the surrounding towns.
Earlier in the day, Israeli military spokesperson Jonathan Conricus said the military had detected tunnels crossing from Lebanon into northern Israel and that the country had initiated an operation to thwart them
Conricus said the Israeli operation to counter the tunnels would be inside Israel, and would not cross the border.
Israel released video footage of digging and pile-driving equipment at work in unidentified locations carrying out what it said were “tactical preparations to expose Hezbollah’s offensive cross-border tunnel project.”
Although the Israeli military clarified that the tunnels were not yet operational, it said they posed “an imminent threat” to Israeli civilians and constituted “a flagrant and severe violation of Israeli sovereignty.”
It said the army had “enhanced its presence and readiness” and was prepared for “various scenarios.”
Conricus said the current focus of the Israeli operations was near the Israeli border town of Metula, adding that some areas near the border fence had been closed off. An Israeli military source said the operation might take weeks to complete.
The Israeli military did not disclose how many tunnels there were.
Reinforcements were sent to the border, and later Tuesday, the military said the first tunnel had been uncovered, running from a private Lebanese home in Kfar Kila, and would be demolished.
Conricus said the tunnel, outfitted with electricity, a ventilation pipe and a communication cable, was about 200 meters long, at a depth of 25 meters about 2 meters high. The tunnel’s exit point was found in a patch of farmland southwest of Metula, the military said.
According to Conricus, the tunnels were part of a Hezbollah plan from 2012 to “shift the battlefield to Israel” and “conquer the Galilee” in a future conflict by infiltrating its territory.
In 2013, the Israeli army acted on reports that Hezbollah was digging tunnels, but failed to locate any, he said.
Following the 2014 war between Israel and Gaza, in which the Hamas Movement used cross-border attack tunnels, the army said it found “Hezbollah and Hamas share knowledge” and soon after began intensive work to prevent tunnels from Lebanon.
Avichay Adraee, another spokesman for the Israeli army, said in a tweet that Hezbollah and the Lebanese Army should not attempt any attack through the tunnels. The army “warns Hezbollah and Lebanese Army personnel and advises them to stay away from any attack [through the tunnels] dug from the Lebanese to the Israeli lands. Your life is in danger,” Adraee said.
Israel has violated Lebanon’s sovereignty almost daily in recent years. On scores of occasions, Israel also used Lebanon’s airspace to hit several targets within Syria. In October, Lebanese caretaker Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil noted that Israel had violated Lebanon’s land, sea and air sovereignty 1,417 times over the previous eight months. With agencies
