By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent Worthy News
BEIRUT/JERUSALEM (Worthy News) – Israel’s military announced Monday they had uncovered an extensive underground Hezbollah base in Lebanon from where the Iran-backed group planned “a larger massacre” in Israel than the one carried out by Hamas on October 7.
The discovery came on the day that the Lebanese Red Cross said 18 people were killed in an Israeli strike hitting Aitou in northern Lebanon as part of a widening military campaign that Israel says is aimed at Hezbollah.
Footage reviewed by Worthy News shows that the base purportedly served as a command and control center for Hezbollah’s special forces, the Radwan Forces, stretching 800 meters (2,624) feet underground.
IDF Chief Spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, carrying a rifle, said: “They were planning, with these motorcycles here, to enter Kiryat Shmona, to Yiftah, to villages and positions inside Israel and conduct a massacre. They were here only a couple of days ago.”
He spoke after the IDF’s Yahalom unit raided the base where a wall was adorned with a picture of late Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, who was assassinated by Israel last month.
The IDF said they entered the underground Hezbollah hideout following “intelligence collected in southern Lebanon.”
PLANNED INVASION
Inside, they found helicopter-fired missiles, mortar shells, motorcycles, living quarters, and means for long-term stays, including a kitchen stocked with food and supplies, the video showed.
The IDF believes these supplies were to be used during a planned Hezbollah invasion of Israel to kill more people than Hamas on October 7, when some 1,200 people died.
It also expressed concern that Hezbollah was able to store weapons near a base of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), a U.N. peacekeeping mission.
Footage shared with Worthy News appeared to confirm that assessment. “You might be asking yourself the same question we are: ‘How come Hezbollah is able to embed their weapons just a few meters away from a UNIFIL post?’” the IDF said.
The discoveries came while the Lebanese Red Cross said at least 18 people were killed in Aitou, the first known time that Israel targeted the Christian-majority northern region.
The latest clashes came after the IDF said a Hezbollah drone attack “killed four Israeli soldiers at an Israeli army base south of Haifa on Sunday night.”
DEADLIEST ATTACKS
It was described as one of the deadliest attacks against Israel by Hezbollah in over a year of fighting.
In Lebanon, 51 people were killed by Israeli strikes across the country on Sunday, the health ministry said, but those figures were complex to verify independently.
Elsewhere in Gaza, Hamas-run authorities said an Israeli attack on a school used as a shelter “killed 22 people” on Sunday, “including 15 children.”
The U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees says the building was to be used to administer polio vaccines in Gaza.
Israel says it wants to avoid casualties among civilians but adds that Iran’s proxies, including Hezbollah and Hamas, use civilians as “human shields.”
Copyright 1999-2025 Worthy News. This article was originally published on Worthy News and was reproduced with permission.
Latest News from Worthy News
The Supreme Court on Tuesday lifted a lower court injunction that had blocked the Trump administration from carrying out mass layoffs and sweeping structural changes across the federal government, allowing the president’s ambitious reorganization plan to move forward while litigation continues.
President Donald Trump on Wednesday announced a sweeping escalation in his global tariff policy, issuing formal letters to eight more countries warning that steep import duties will take effect on August 1 unless new trade agreements are reached. The move marks the latest salvo in Trump’s aggressive “America First” trade agenda, which he says is designed to correct decades of unfair trade practices and ballooning U.S. deficits.
Negotiations between Israel and Hamas are inching toward a potential 60-day ceasefire and hostage release deal, but a core dispute remains unresolved: the deployment of Israeli troops in Gaza throughout the truce period. While both sides agree that significant progress has been made, talks in Doha are intensifying over troop presence, humanitarian aid delivery, and the long-term status of the war.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) confirmed Wednesday that it has conducted a series of targeted ground operations in southern Lebanon aimed at dismantling Hezbollah’s military presence and preventing the Iran-backed terror group from re-establishing infrastructure near the border. The raids, described as “special, targeted operations,” were carried out over the past several days in response to repeated ceasefire violations by Hezbollah.
Despite a previously signed agreement by Christian leaders to avoid legal action, the governor of West Java has called for full prosecution of a violent June 27 mob attack on a Christian youth retreat, describing it as a “serious criminal matter” that must not go unpunished.
In a sweeping move to safeguard America’s agricultural integrity and national security, the Trump administration has unveiled a comprehensive action plan to ban Chinese ownership of U.S. farmland and root out foreign influence in the agricultural sector.
Ten people have been arrested so far in a “planned ambush” of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers in north Texas.