CAIRO — Israel’s military has demolished an underground tunnel network belonging to Lebanese militant group Hezbollah in a southern Lebanon village, according to a Sunday joint statement issued by Israel’s prime minister and defense minister.
The strike hit a 200-meter (656-foot) tunnel located in the town of Majdal Zoun. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz confirmed in their statement that the United States was notified before the attack took place.
According to the Israeli statement, the tunnel was packed with hundreds of weapons and rocket launchers.
The operation followed earlier Israeli military strikes the same day, when forces targeted Hezbollah fighters carrying rocket-propelled grenades and hit a rocket launcher in the Nabatieh region of southern Lebanon.
Just days earlier, on Friday, a security deal brokered by the United States was reached between Lebanon and Israel. The agreement calls for a gradual Israeli pullback from certain parts of southern Lebanon while the Lebanese army moves in. However, Israeli forces would be allowed to remain in an expanded security zone for the foreseeable future.
Hezbollah’s leader Naim Qassem flatly rejected the deal, calling it a capitulation to Israel and vowing that his group would press on with armed resistance.
In his Sunday night statement, Netanyahu said Israeli forces would hold their position in the southern Lebanon security zone and would “continue to destroy terrorist infrastructure, remove threats from the northern communities, and safeguard the security of Israel’s citizens.”
The ongoing conflict has forced more than one million Lebanese residents out of their homes. Hezbollah and Iran have claimed that Washington committed to ending hostilities in Lebanon as part of a memorandum of understanding signed two weeks ago to bring a halt to the broader war with Iran.
