Israeli Military Releases Footage of Underground Infrastructure Dismantling in Lebanon

The Israeli military released footage on Thursday showing what it described as the dismantling of underground infrastructure in the Ali Taher Ridge area of southern Lebanon.

The video, provided by the Israeli army, includes night-vision and black-and-white shots of explosions and rising smoke. Text overlaid on the footage reads "Dismantling of the underground infrastructure in the Ali al-Taher Ridge area."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz said the military had destroyed Hezbollah's underground infrastructure on the strategic ridge, an area that has seen clashes between Israeli forces and Hezbollah in recent weeks.

In a Hebrew-language statement included in the footage, Israeli military spokesman Brig. Gen. Effie Defrin said he was speaking from beneath the ridge, inside the network that Hezbollah built in the area. He said the Northern Command's Division 36 had obtained operational control over the ridge and that forces were completing the destruction and neutralization of the infrastructure.

Defrin said the network was built over two decades with funding and direction from Iran, which he described as a terror regime. He said the infrastructure served as a central compound and formed the nerve center of Hezbollah's Badr Unit in the area.

He added that all fighters who had stayed in the infrastructure were either eliminated or fled, and that Hezbollah had failed to defend the site despite declaring it would do so at any cost. According to Defrin, Israeli forces found large quantities of equipment left behind in the tunnels, including weapons manufactured by Iran.

Netanyahu and Katz said Israeli forces would remain in what Israel calls the "security zone" in southern Lebanon and continue destroying Hezbollah infrastructure.

The Israeli military provided the videos, and the dates, locations, and conditions under which they were shot could not be independently verified.