Maj. Gen. Yair Golan
Photo: Motti Kimchi
IDF northern commander: Hezbollah not tunneling on Lebanon border
Maj. Gen. Yair Golan meets with heads of northern communities, stresses that tunnels don't pose a threat along frontier with Lebanon.
Despite growing fears of Hezbollah infiltration using smuggling tunnels similar to those built by Hamas in the south, no such tunnels have yet been discovered, GOC Northern Command Major General Yair Golan told mayors of Israeli towns located along the Lebanon border on Sunday.
"The general stressed that at the moment there are no known attack tunnels coming from Lebanon," said a statement at the end of the meeting.
The conference was intended to discuss lessons that could be taken from Operation Protective Edge in the south and applied to the security situation in the north as well as to "address recent reports in the media regarding tunnels on the Lebanon border."
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General Golan assured the leaders of the northern communities that while tunnels were not currently the main threat being considered from Hezbollah, lessons had been learned within the military as a result of Operation Protective Edge and the IDF would be prepared to meet such a threat if needed.
IDF troops in Gaza tunnel (Photo: Yoav Zitun)
The IDF destroyed a total of 32 tunnels along the Gaza border during Protective Edge amid terrorist attacks in which Hamas militants were able to infiltrate Israeli territory undetected through the tunnels.
Hamas has reportedly spent the last five years constructing the tunnel infrastructure needed to carry out such attacks and fear has been steadily growing in the north that Hezbollah may have been doing exactly the same.
According to Golan, missiles and Iranian constructed rockets still pose a greater threat on the northern front that the possibility of smuggling tunnels being built to infiltrate northern towns and kibbutzim.
