WarSclerotic

The Israeli government has passed information to the United Nations detailing the existence of additional “underground infrastructure” belonging to Hezbollah along the Israeli-Lebanese border, The Times of Israel has learned, including tunnels headed toward Israeli territory that were not destroyed in the IDF’s recent Operation Northern Shield.

Hezbollah’s construction work on these additional tunnels ceased last month when the terror organization realized its plans were known by the Israeli side. None of the new tunnels had reached the Israeli border, unlike the six tunnels that have been destroyed by Israel.

The additional tunnels, all of which are in Lebanese territory, are known to Israeli intelligence and are within Israel’s operational reach, an Israeli official said.

The official confirmed a similar claim to this effect made by the Israeli military earlier this month.

Former IDF chief of staff Gadi Eisenkot, right, is interviewed by Amos Yadlin at the Institute for National Security Studies annual conference in Tel Aviv on January 27, 2019. (INSS)

“The IDF is monitoring and is in possession of a number of sites where Hezbollah is digging underground infrastructure that has yet to cross into Israeli territory,” the army said on January 13.

On Sunday, former IDF chief Gadi Eisenkot said Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah’s assertion in a Saturday night interview that there are things Israel doesn’t know regarding Hezbollah’s tunnel program “is flat wrong.”

A photo released by the IDF on December 27, 2018, shows fluids the army says it used to seal cross-border attack tunnels dug by Hezbollah coming out of a civilian building in the southern Lebanese village of Kafr Kila. (IDF Spokesperson)

On December 4, Israel launched Operation Northern Shield to find and destroy Hezbollah cross-border attack tunnels, and on January 13, the military announced it had found all such passages and was working to demolish them.

In a three-hour-long interview with the pro-Hezbollah al-Mayadeen TV on Saturday, Nasrallah said that the tunnels project began before the 2006 Second Lebanon War, and, indeed, one tunnel destroyed by the IDF in its recent operation was started before 2006. The Shiite organization’s tunnels project was only exposed in 2014.

Hezbollah terror group leader Hassan Nasrallah is interviewed on the al-Mayadeen Lebanese television channel, January 26, 2019 (Screen capture)

Nasrallah, in his interview, had claimed: “The uncovering of the tunnels does not affect by 10 percent our plans to take over the Galilee. If we decide to do it — even if they’ve destroyed the tunnels — can’t we rebuild them?” He also suggested there may be attack tunnels on the Israeli-Lebanese border which Israel has not yet discovered.

The Times of Israel has also confirmed that the rocket launched at Israel last week from Syria that was destroyed by the Iron Dome system over Mount Hermon was likely fired by troops belonging to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and not by a Shiite militia, and had been shipped to Syria from Iran. The missile was fired from one of the southern neighborhoods of Damascus, near Sayeda Zeinab, a Shiite holy site.

This photo released by the Syrian official news agency SANA, shows missiles flying into the sky near international airport, in Damascus, Syria, January 21, 2019. (SANA via AP)

Israel believes Iran currently has some 2,000 IRGC personnel in Syria, and thousands more members of Shiite militias under their command. The government believes that the number of Iranians on Syrian soil has fallen to one-third of what it was a few years ago; Iran has reduced its presence in Syria, but not removed it. Hezbollah, too, has significantly reduced its forces in Syria.

Iran officially denies having a military presence in Syria; it says it has advisers there.

Judah Ari Gross contributed to this report.

The deputy head of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said Monday that Tehran’s strategy was to eventually wipe Israel off the “global political map.”

Asked by a reporter in Tehran about Israeli threats to strike Iranian forces deployed in Syria, Brig. Gen. Hossein Salami was quoted by Iranian news outlets as saying, “Our strategy is to erase Israel from the global political map. And it seems that, considering the evil that Israel is doing, it is bringing itself closer to that.”

He added: “We announce that if Israel does anything to start a new war, it will obviously be the war that will end with its elimination, and the occupied territories will be returned. The Israelis will not have even a cemetery in Palestine to bury their own corpses.”

Salami’s comments followed a series of reciprocal taunts by Israeli and Iranian leaders in recent weeks as tensions have risen on the Israeli-Syrian border between IDF and Iranian forces.

Last week, Israel reportedly conducted a rare daylight missile attack on Iranian targets in Syria. In response, Iran fired a surface-to-surface missile from Syria at the northern Golan Heights, which was intercepted by the Iron Dome missile defense system over the Mount Hermon ski resort, according to the Israel Defense Forces.

Israeli army Merkava tanks take positions on the Golan Heights, on January 20, 2019. (Jalaa Marey/AFP)

Hours later, in the predawn hours of January 21, the Israeli Air Force launched retaliatory strikes on Iranian targets near Damascus and on the Syrian air defense batteries that fired upon the attacking Israeli fighter jets, the army said.

Twenty-one people were killed in the Israeli raids in Syria on January 21, 12 of them Iranian fighters, a Britain-based Syrian war monitor said the following day.

According to Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, 12 of those killed were members of Salami’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, six were Syrian military fighters, and the other three were other non-Syrian nationals.

Israel sees Iranian entrenchment in Syria as a major threat and in recent years has carried out hundreds of airstrikes in Syria against targets linked to Iran, which alongside its proxies and Russia is fighting on behalf of the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad.

Earlier this week, Iran’s military chief of staff indicated Tehran was preparing to adopt offensive military tactics to protect its national interests, an apparent reference to its posture in Syria toward Israel.

An explosion, reportedly during Israeli airstrikes near Damascus, Syria, on January 21, 2019. (screen capture: YouTube)

“Among the country’s broad strategies, there is a defensive strategy. We defend the independence and territorial integrity and national interests of the country,” Gen. Mohammad Bagheri was quoted as saying by Press TV on Sunday.

He said Iran did not intend to seize foreign territory, but “to protect our national achievements and interests, we may adopt an offensive approach.”

Also Sunday, the commander of the Iranian Army’s Ground Forces, Brig. Gen. Kiumars Heidari, said his troops had transformed into a “forward-moving and offensive” force.

“To protect Iran, the armed forces no longer need asymmetric approaches, and we are at a stage where we can defend our homeland… by using good offensive approaches,” he said, according to Press TV.

The announcements by top Iranian brass comes days after the Islamic Republic held its annual infantry drill, involving some 12,000 troops, fighter jets, armored vehicles and drones.

In this photo provided Friday, January 25, 2019, by the Iranian Army, soldiers take position in an infantry drill in the central Isfahan province, Iran. (Iranian Army via AP)

The exercise, which Iranian officials called “war games,” involved newly developed rapid redeployment units, and focused on combat against enemies and armed militants, Reuters reported on Thursday.

General Heidari told state TV last week the exercise exemplified Iran’s military capabilities, and demonstrated to its enemies that they would be dealt a “rapid and crushing blow” if they attacked the Islamic Republic, Reuters reported.

Iran regularly holds exercises to display its military preparedness and has vowed to respond strongly to any attack by Israel or the United States, both of which view it as a regional menace.