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| Israel Begins Anti-Tunnel Effort Along Its Border With Lebanon | Israel Begins Anti-Tunnel Effort Along Its Border With Lebanon |
| (about 2 hours later) | |
| JERUSALEM — Israel started a military operation on Tuesday to expose and thwart offensive tunnels it said Hezbollah had been building across the Lebanese border, the military said, the first time that Israel has taken open action to combat underground passageways in the north. | |
| The effort, called Operation Northern Shield, was aimed at an unspecified number of tunnels in the area of Metula, said Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus, spokesman for the Israel Defense Forces. | The effort, called Operation Northern Shield, was aimed at an unspecified number of tunnels in the area of Metula, said Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus, spokesman for the Israel Defense Forces. |
| None of the tunnels were ready to be used, he said, and the army was neither asking civilians in the area to evacuate nor calling up reserves, though it declared an area around Metula, in the northernmost reaches of the Galilee panhandle, a closed military zone. | None of the tunnels were ready to be used, he said, and the army was neither asking civilians in the area to evacuate nor calling up reserves, though it declared an area around Metula, in the northernmost reaches of the Galilee panhandle, a closed military zone. |
| Israel has been building defensive obstacles along a roughly seven-mile stretch of its border with Lebanon since 2015, constructing fences, clearing vegetation and creating steep cliffs to deter invading forces. Those efforts are aimed at defeating what Colonel Conricus said was Hezbollah’s goal of assuring that the next battlefield between Israel and Lebanon would be inside Israeli territory. | Israel has been building defensive obstacles along a roughly seven-mile stretch of its border with Lebanon since 2015, constructing fences, clearing vegetation and creating steep cliffs to deter invading forces. Those efforts are aimed at defeating what Colonel Conricus said was Hezbollah’s goal of assuring that the next battlefield between Israel and Lebanon would be inside Israeli territory. |
| In an early morning call with reporters, Colonel Conricus provided few details, divulging neither the number and extent of the tunnels Israel had discovered nor how it planned to destroy them. He said more information would become available later Tuesday. | In an early morning call with reporters, Colonel Conricus provided few details, divulging neither the number and extent of the tunnels Israel had discovered nor how it planned to destroy them. He said more information would become available later Tuesday. |
| The operation was taking place on Tuesday morning on the Israeli side of the border, within Israeli territory, the Foreign Ministry said. | |
| Brig. Gen. Ronen Manelis, the chief military spokesman, said Israel was prepared for a “broad operation over several weeks.” The military also warned Hezbollah and soldiers of the Lebanese Army to stay away from the tunnels, saying their lives were in danger. | |
| The operation came a day after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met in Brussels with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to discuss curbing Iranian aggression in the region. | |
| Israeli officials have accused Iran of helping Hezbollah build underground factories in Lebanon to upgrade the militant group’s arsenal of missiles. In addition, Israeli news outlets have reported that Iran has been flying advanced weaponry directly to Beirut, bypassing overland shipment routes through Syria that Israel has repeatedly bombed. | |
| But Israel kept its plans for the tunnel operation, and even its knowledge of the existence of such cross-border tunnels, completely under wraps, taking Hezbollah and the Israeli public by surprise with Tuesday’s action. | |
| The military said it had been gathering intelligence and developing operational and technological abilities to deal with the northern tunnels since 2014. Israel has been steadily detecting and destroying cross-border attack tunnels from the Palestinian territory of Gaza, in the south, for years. | |
| The tunnels from Lebanon had not become operational and posed no immediate threat to Israeli civilians, the military said in a statement. | |
| They did, however, constitute “a flagrant and severe violation of Israeli sovereignty,” the military said, and served as additional proof of Hezbollah’s disregard for United Nations Security Council resolutions. | |
| In particular, Israel said, the tunnels violated Resolution 1701, which formalized the cease-fire that ended a devastating, monthlong war between Israel and Hezbollah in the summer of 2006. The military emphasized that Hezbollah’s activities were supported and financed by Iran. | |
| Mr. Netanyahu had hinted recently that Israel would soon embark on a military campaign of some sort, warning darkly that it would “require sacrifice.” The warning came in mid-November, when Mr. Netanyahu delivered a live, televised speech in which he urged his teetering coalition partners not to topple the government at what he called a complex time for national security. To do so, he said, would be “irresponsible.” | |
| The political crisis was precipitated by the resignation of the hard-line defense minister, Avigdor Lieberman, who cited the government’s lack of resolve in handling the latest conflict with Gaza, a botched spy mission by Israel that led to exchanges of rocket fire. Israel agreed to a cease-fire that brought a hasty, if inconclusive, end to that round of fighting in the south. | |
| Mr. Netanyahu said at the time that Israel was “in the midst of battle,” that he had “a clear plan” and would act at the right time. He also announced that he was taking on the role of defense minister. | |
| The military operation comes as Mr. Netanyahu is facing growing legal troubles. On Sunday, the Israeli police recommended that he be indicted on bribery, fraud and other charges in a case involving accusations he traded regulatory favors for fawning news coverage — the third, and potentially the most damaging, in a series of corruption cases against him this year. | |
| Israel has long tried to draw international attention to what it says is Hezbollah’s efforts to build up its firepower in southern Lebanon, pointing to arms depots, rocket-launching sites and signs of underground tunnels in Shiite villages close to the border. | |
| But Israel has never before exposed its knowledge of Hezbollah tunnels running into Israeli territory, despite the complaints of citizens living in Israeli communities close to the northern border about strange sounds coming from underground, as if the Lebanese militants were digging beneath their homes. In the wake of the complaints the military began a drilling operation in early 2015 but did not announce the results. | |
| Amos Yadlin, a former military intelligence chief and now director of the Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University, said the main threat from Hezbollah was its effort to improve the accuracy of its missiles aimed against Israel. | |
| Speaking on Israeli television, he described the operation against the tunnels as “legitimate” but said the danger now was of escalation, raising the question of whether Israel’s action would prompt Hezbollah to respond. |