Tel Aviv [Israel]: Israeli soldiers seized a weapons cache located beneath a schoolyard in southern Lebanon, the Israel Defense Forces disclosed on Tuesday.
The weapons were found in an underground Hezbollah facility tens of meters long. Rockets, explosive charges, rocket-propelled grenades and other weapons were seized.
The army added that soldiers also captured rocket launchers, anti-tank missiles, military equipment, and intelligence documents in a nearby building.
On Monday night, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed not to allow the Iran-backed Hezbollah return to its pre-war strength.
“We will be required, in order to ensure our security in the north, to systematically carry out operations–not only against Hezbollah’s attacks, which could come. Even if there is a ceasefire, nobody can guarantee it will hold. So it’s not only our reaction, a preventive reaction, a reaction in the wake of attack but also the capacity to prevent Hezbollah from strengthening,” said Netanyahu during an address to the Knesset.
Sarit Zahavi, president and founder of the Alma Research Center, told The Press Service of Israel in August that Hezbollah doctrine makes extensive use of civilian areas, where many more weapons, including ballistic missiles, are kept.
“Hezbollah stores their weapons everywhere, both between villages and within the villages themselves,” she said.
“By and large, every third house in the Shi’ite villages of south Lebanon is used in some way by Hezbollah for military purposes, be it weapons storage, the entrance of a tunnel, or a launchpad for shooting rockets at Israel,” she explained. Soldiers have even found cruise missiles inside homes ready for launch.
After the Hamas attacks of October 7, 2023, Hezbollah began launching rockets and launching drones at northern Israel communities daily. More than 68,000 residents of northern Israel are displaced from their homes. Hezbollah leaders have repeatedly said they would continue the attacks to prevent Israelis from returning to their homes.
According to United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended the 2006 Second Lebanon War, Hezbollah is forbidden from operating in southern Lebanon south of the Litani River.
At least 1,200 people were killed, and 252 Israelis and foreigners were taken hostage in Hamas’s attacks on Israeli communities near the Gaza border on October 7. Of the 97 remaining hostages, more than 30 have been declared dead.
Hamas has also been holding captive two Israeli civilians since 2014 and 2015, and the bodies of two soldiers killed in 2014.