Please Follow us on Truth Social, X , Youtube , Minds, Telegram, Rumble, GETTR, Gab, Instagram
The Israel Defense Forces announced Thursday they have destroyed an Iran-funded Hezbollah tunnel network in southern Lebanon, marking one of the most significant infrastructure strikes of the ongoing Lebanon operation. The tunnels, built with Iranian financing and engineering support, were used to move fighters, weapons, and command personnel beneath the Lebanese terrain — a tactic Hezbollah has relied on for decades to survive Israeli air superiority.
The announcement comes as Israel's Defense Minister Israel Katz delivered a blunt statement on Israeli intentions: "We did not ask anyone's permission to enter Lebanon, and we do not need permission to stay in Lebanon." Katz added that Israeli forces would remain until Hezbollah is fully disarmed — a maximalist condition that sets up a prolonged occupation scenario with no clear exit timeline.
On the ground, Israel and Lebanon reached a separate agreement this week under which the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) would move into positions vacated by the IDF as part of a pilot program designed to ensure southern Lebanon remains free of Hezbollah fighters and weapons. The arrangement is an attempt to give Israel a face-saving mechanism for any eventual withdrawal while maintaining a buffer enforced by Lebanese state forces rather than Hezbollah. Whether the LAF has the capacity — or the political will — to actually hold those positions against Hezbollah pressure is an open question that no one in Beirut or Jerusalem is answering directly.
Meanwhile, residents of Israel's Upper Galilee were warned Thursday of a large blast expected from IDF activity in Lebanon — suggesting ongoing strikes that are not being fully detailed in official statements.
The Iran angle is significant. The tunnel network the IDF claims to have destroyed represents years of Iranian investment in Hezbollah's underground infrastructure. Its destruction, if comprehensive, would set back Hezbollah's ability to reconstitute its military posture in the south — but Hezbollah has rebuilt before, and Iran has the financing to fund it again.
The bottom line: Israel has no intention of leaving Lebanon on any timeline it hasn't set itself, and the condition it has set — full Hezbollah disarmament — is one that no Lebanese government has the power to enforce. The pilot LAF deployment is a diplomatic fig leaf on what is, functionally, an open-ended occupation.
