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3. Hezbollah: From Military Power to Spoiler Power

By defying an official ban and illuminating Pigeon Rock in Raouche with portraits of its two former leaders assassinated by Israel in 2024, and mobilizing thousands of supporters for a flagrantly ostentatious show of force, Hezbollah once again pushed the boundaries of its provocative maneuvers.

This time, it was through deeds rather than words that the group signaled to the Lebanese people its intention to remain outside the state framework, an outlaw force only bound by its loyalty to its Iranian patron.

In Hezbollah’s lexicon, the word “authorization” has a one-sided meaning: it is the pro-Iranian formation that has long claimed the right to grant or withhold permission to the Lebanese. Whether for journalists reporting from its zones of influence, tourists taking photos or any citizen voicing an opinion, dissent is not tolerated. When someone contradicts Hezbollah, they are instantly labeled a “traitor.” Push opposition too far, and one risks elimination.

By contrast, Hezbollah considers itself above the rules that govern the state. Since declaring itself a supranational force, its will, actions and policies are sacred in its own eyes, as long as they bear the self-proclaimed label of “resistance.” A highly elastic concept, “resistance” conveniently legitimizes a wide array of practices normally punishable by law. The group claims these liberties under the disingenuous pretext of “defending Lebanon.”

Lebanon Trapped

To dismantle the argument Hezbollah endlessly recycles, one need only examine the tunnel network: an interconnected system of underground military galleries stretching across southern Lebanon, the Beqaa, the Syrian border, the southern suburbs of Beirut and beyond.

In effect, Hezbollah has trapped Lebanon. It has turned the country into a powder keg, and this is no metaphor. It did so, of course, without seeking the consent of the Lebanese people.

The war into which it dragged them, again without their approval, revealed the staggering expanse of residential, agricultural and forested areas rigged with tunnels to serve its military strategy.

Hezbollah has never asked the residents of border villages for permission to dig thousands of underground galleries beneath their homes, schools, fields and businesses, where it stored the arsenal Hassan Nasrallah boasted about when promising to strike Israel “beyond Haifa.”

It did not seek consent to use civilians as human shields, and brazenly continues to present itself as “Lebanon’s shield against Israel” to justify maintaining its arsenal.

Nor did it obtain approval to launch rockets from houses abandoned by residents during the war, fully aware that Israel’s army would retaliate to destroy the firing sites.

Tunnels and Burrows

The numbers are staggering. According to the Israeli Army’s Arabic-speaking spokesperson, Avichay Adraee, the army destroyed around 1,500 underground positions, including weapons production centers.

The rest is being dismantled under the November 27, 2024, ceasefire agreement, which, like UN Security Council Resolution 1701, calls for a demilitarized zone south of the Litani River.

On the Lebanese side, authorities remain vague about the number of uncovered tunnels, offering only a rough estimate: 90% of the area has been cleared.

Over the years, with the patient destructiveness of a mole, Hezbollah built a vast underground military network, particularly in the south. The interconnected tunnels stretch for hundreds of kilometers, with branches reaching into Israel for offensive and defensive operations and into Syria to facilitate military supply lines.

These tunnels housed not only weapons but also Hezbollah’s telecommunications network, which was Israel’s first target during its retaliation after Hezbollah opened the southern front.

Military sources report roughly 200 major positions and over 700 smaller ones, revealing an extensive network of tunnels and weapons depots in border villages.

Many of these tunnels were discovered thanks to structures resembling burrows, with entrances near homes, in valleys or beneath rocks, according to sources who spoke to our correspondent Katia Kahil.

In Kfar Kila, just a few hundred meters from the Israeli town of Metula, a tunnel entrance was built in a children’s room.

In the border village of Mays al-Jabal, facing the Israeli town of Kiryat Shmona, an inhabited house concealed a major weapons cache, including a tunnel entrance.

To date, more than 50 tunnel entrances have been destroyed or uncovered, including one just 150 meters from a UNIFIL post.

Between the Israeli border and Aita al-Shaab, a tunnel contained a weapons depot, a command center and fighters’ quarters, opening into a system of trenches.

An Old Story

Lebanese citizens first realized the danger posed by Hezbollah’s tunnel network in December 2018, when Israel discovered cross-border tunnels extending several dozen meters into its territory.

Earlier, in 2004, another cross-border tunnel about 10 meters long, linking Marwahin in southern Lebanon with Zar’it in Israel, was discovered and blocked by the Israeli Army.

In one of his first speeches as Hezbollah’s leader, Naim Qassem acknowledged, while dwelling on Israel’s “expansionist ambitions,” that his group had been working since the end of the 2006 war to strengthen its military presence in southern Lebanon.

However, the tunnels’ construction began in the 1980s with assistance from Iran and North Korea. It intensified after Israel’s withdrawal from southern Lebanon in 2000, aided by logistical support from the Iranian Revolutionary Guards and the regime of Bashar al-Assad, at a time when Lebanon was still under Syrian occupation.

Like Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah designed its underground infrastructure to protect its leaders and fighters and maintain communication and supply lines. Meanwhile, the civilian population was left to fend for itself.

Military sources in southern Lebanon told our correspondent Katia Kahil that tunnels not yet neutralized “pass beneath civilian homes, which complicates their dismantling and poses risks for local populations.” Some parts of the network may still remain undiscovered.

Estimates of the tunnels’ depth vary. Some reach up to 50 meters, while others are much shallower, depending on their purpose.

This vast and intricate network was, for a time, a source of pride for Hezbollah, a pride that also contributed to its undoing.

On August 16, the Iran-backed group released a nearly five-minute promotional video of its tunnel network, named Imad 4, to showcase “its level of military preparedness and power against Israel.” A month later, Israeli airstrikes targeted the network.

Hezbollah has since lost its military edge. Today, it only retains a power of nuisance, primarily wielded against the Lebanese people.