UNIFIL confirms tunnel in northern Israel, Netanyahu warns of possible operation in Lebanon

The United Nations (UN) peacekeepers have confirmed the existence of a tunnel in northern Israel, which Israel claims to be one of many dug by Hezbollah to use in a future war. 

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned that there is "reasonable possibility we will have to operate in Lebanon" to thwart the threat by Hezbollah.

The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) inspected Thursday a location in Israel's northernmost town of Metulla and confirmed in a statement that a tunnel near the Blue Line, a UN-designated border demarcation between the two countries, does exist.

Calling the discovery a "serious occurrence," the UNIFIL said: "It is very important to determine the full picture," adding that it is "engaged with the parties to pursue urgent follow-up action."

Attack tunnels 

Israel on Tuesday launched operation "Northern Shield" to block what the government says is a network of underground passages that Hezbollah had dug across the border to infiltrate the Israeli territory.

The tunnels are not functional, but Israel said they posed an "imminent threat", expressing belief that Hezbollah intended to use them to carry out assaults in a future face-off.

"If you look at the Hamas tunnels, they're very narrow, basically for one person. The Hezbollah tunnels are broad. They enable several people to come at once and also to put motorcycles, I'm pretty sure tractors and so on," Netanyahu told 25 foreign ambassadors as he gave them a tour around the underground structures near the border with Lebanon on Thursday.

"Israel expects an unequivocal condemnation of Hezbollah, the imposition of additional sanctions on Iran, condemnation from the Lebanese government and demand that it stop giving its approval for the use of its territory for these attacks against Israel," he added.

The group, which is also part of the Lebanese government, has yet to comment on the developments on the border.

However, Nabih Berri, speaker of the parliament and head of the Amal movement, an ally of Hezbollah, said Wednesday Israel failed to respond to Lebanese authorities' request to provide the coordinates of the tunnels.

It is not clear how many tunnels have been detected so far, but the Israeli army announced on Thursday that a new channel was discovered. The tunnel starts from the Lebanese village of Ramyeh and passes underneath houses before reaching the town of Zarit in Israel.

The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) said they provided the UNIFIL with a map of the tunnel's origin in Lebanon along with relevant intelligence information, calling on the peacekeeping mission and the Lebanese authorities to neutralize the tunnel from their end.

Threats and complaints

Another tunnel opens in Metulla and is understood to originate from Kafr Kila in Lebanon. The residents of the border village have reportedly received threatening messages on their phones from the Israeli side, prompting Lebanon to file a complaint with the UN secretary-general as well as the president of the UN Security Council, headed this month by Cote d'Ivoire.

In a letter signed to UN Chief Antonio Guterres, Lebanon's Permanent Representative to the UN Amal Mudallali condemned Israel's political and diplomatic campaign against the country, expressing concern it could be a "prelude for attacks" on it.

Israel has "breached the communication networks in Lebanon by infiltrating the phone networks and sending registered messages to the safe civilians of Kafr Kila warning them of explosions targeting Lebanese territory and putting their life in danger", read the letter.

"This is a very serious attack targeting Lebanon, as well as the security and safety of its citizens by violating their privacy, and poses a threat to their life," she added, condemning Israel's consistent infiltration of Lebanese territory.

Dramatized operation?

Israel has long been wary of Hezbollah's military activities along its northern border. The group is backed by Iran, Israel's regional nemesis, and the IDF fought a bloody 33-day war in 2006 and targeted its operations in Syria, where Hezbollah militants are fighting alongside President Bashar al-Assad's forces, in recent years.

Operation "Northern Shield" is the culmination of years of Israeli intelligence gathering on the Lebanese group's presence along its border, but many questioned the timing of the maneuver especially with a media blitz and amid Netanyahu's domestic woes.

Israeli officials say the campaign was launched to prevent Hezbollah from knowing Israel was up to them. Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper quoted an official as saying: "If Hezbollah found out that we know (about the tunnels), they might have accelerated the efforts to carry out a kidnapping. We didn't want to reach a situation in which they infiltrate and capture a soldier or a civilian."

However many believe that the embattled prime minister has been intentionally overplaying the military discovery to prop up his popularity and deflect attention from corruption allegations against him and anger over a ceasefire deal his government struck with Hamas in Gaza.

Opposition leader Tzipi Livni accused Netanyahu of hyping up the situation, saying he is "blowing the incident out of proportion".

"We are not now in a situation where our soldiers are behind enemy lines, we are talking about engineering activity within the sovereign territory of the state of Israel," she stated in an interview.

(Cover: An Israeli machine operates near the border wall with Lebanon in the Israeli town of Misgav Am,  December 4, 2018.