Hezbollah cross-border tunnels found: Israel

JERUSALEM: Israel said Sunday it had uncovered all cross-border attack tunnels dug by Hezbollah from Lebanon and will bring its operation to find and destroy them to an end after more than a month.

The operation begun on December 4 had raised concerns that Hezbollah, the Lebanon-based Shiite group and enemy of Israel, would respond and spark a new conflict between them, but the border has remained calm throughout. An Israeli military spokesman declined to say how many tunnels had been discovered in total, but the army has announced six since the operation was launched. The last tunnel was exposed on Saturday, the army said. “We have found yet another Hezbollah cross-border attack tunnel from Lebanon to Israel,” Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Conricus told reporters. “According to our intelligence and our assessment of the situation there are no longer any cross-border attack tunnels from Lebanon into Israel.”

The latest tunnel began in the Lebanese village of Ramyeh, some 800 metres (yards) away from Israel, the army said.It reached a few dozen metres into Israel, and at 55 metres underground was the deepest as well as “the longest and most detailed” of all the tunnels the army exposed, Conricus said.The army said its discovery marked the end of the operation that it called “Northern Shield” and that the last tunnel will be destroyed in the coming days.