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 1999-2024 Worthy News. This article was originally published on Worthy News and was reproduced with permission.
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