The disaster of the "Gaza support war" reached its peak when Hezbollah’s military media launched a propaganda campaign on August 16, 2024, titled "Our Mountains Are Our Storehouses," featuring a video of the fortified "Imad 4" underground military facility. The footage showed deep tunnels carved beneath mountains, spacious enough for large trucks carrying heavy rocket launchers, making the "Gaza metro" appear primitive in comparison to a warfare city that includes a command-and-control center and accommodates large numbers of fighters and equipment for a prolonged confrontation.
In the context of the promotion, it was noted that "what is remarkable is the size of the facility, its underground depth, and the messages it sends to the Israeli enemy that the 'resistance' is ready for all possibilities."
As it turned out recently, the "Imad 4" site is located deep within the Ali al-Tahir region, which MP Hassan Fadlallah included within the trio of Iranian confrontation: the Strait of Hormuz, Bab el-Mandeb, and Ali al-Tahir. Military media marketed it as one of the prominent landmarks for confronting the enemy and protecting the overlooking cities and towns. However, the tunnel city is now at the mercy of Israel, which is controlling it with fire, discovering its entrances, besieging fighters inside, and threatening to detonate it.
Tehran responded that it will not allow this site to fall and will engage in its defense, reinforcing information that Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) officers are among the besieged. This was confirmed by Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, who said he "is in contact with the fighters on the front lines in Lebanon."
The reality of the situation is that this tunnel city, with its equipment and fighters, is taking shelter in neighboring towns, and it could be the cause of completing the destruction of Zawtar al-Sharqiyeh, Zawtar al-Gharbiyeh, Yohmor, Arnoun, Kfar Tebnit, Mayfadoun, and the city of Nabatieh!
The story of the tunnel cities is an old one. The creation of another "South" beneath the South falls within the context of the Iranian project spanning "the Caspian to the Mediterranean." The actual beginning followed the July 2006 war. At that time, Lebanon's friends generously provided support to rebuild what the war had destroyed, with the government undertaking the rehabilitation of infrastructure.
Attending the press conference to thank donor countries, led by the Gulf states, Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri joined Prime Minister Fouad Siniora in labeling the cabinet the "government of political resistance." However, the failure to deliver reconstruction funds to Hezbollah and the "Shiite duo" transformed the cabinet into the "Feltman government" - a reference to the US ambassador at the time. Amid a false triumphalist climate, Hezbollah organized a money collection campaign for "affected individuals," and Jihad al-Binaa - the facade of Iran’s Quds Force - launched the construction of rocket and drone cities in the South to the Dahieh and areas in eastern Lebanon.
In 2008, Hezbollah invaded Beirut and shed the blood of innocent people to overturn a government decision preventing the party from using telephone network tunnels to establish its own private landline communications network. Hassan Nasrallah labeled that "catastrophic day" as a "glorious day," revealing that "weapons are to defend weapons."
On December 4, 2018, Israel announced the discovery of tunnels crossing into the Galilee, originating from the border town of Kfar Kila. Tel Aviv launched Operation Northern Shield to seal these tunnels, which totaled six and had breached the Blue Line. The Israeli army said that the purpose of the tunnels was "to enable thousands of Hezbollah fighters to launch an attack on military and civilian targets in northern Israel." Responsibility was placed on the Lebanese government and UNIFIL forces, and the matter simply passed during the presidency of Michel Aoun.
After forcibly dragging Lebanon into the first "support war," the Israeli army, which subjected the country to collective punishment, initiated its plan to dismantle what it deemed an "underground state" belonging to the IRGC. While it destroyed tunnels in Beirut’s southern suburbs that served as primary command-and-control centers, killing Nasrallah, his successor Hashem Safieddine, and commanders of the Quds Force, the military subsequently shifted its attention to the tunnels in the South.
The destruction of the "Khiam tunnel" wiped out entire neighborhoods, and the destruction of the "Majdal Zoun tunnel" split the town in half, while the destruction of the two-kilometer-long "Qantara tunnels" - boasting dozens of rooms and operational launch openings for rockets and drones - created a seismic crater. The landmarks of the rocky terrain changed following the detonation of tunnels in the vicinity of Beaufort Castle.
The Israeli enemy is tightening its grip on the Ali al-Tahir Hill tunnels, with dozens of towns placed under scrutiny through bombing and bulldozing. It executes what it claims to be "surgical" operations, as seen recently in the Ansar and Deir Zahrani areas, exposing Hezbollah’s repositioning among civilians and turning the era of occupation into a weapon to complete the annihilation.
The big question remains: where were the successive authorities and their security apparatuses, especially after 2006? Why did they acquiesce to turning the South and Dahieh into a compromised canton for establishing military infrastructures beneath the pillows of children, women, and the elderly, in service of a regional hegemony project? Furthermore, who is responsible for paralyzing the role of UNIFIL and besieging them with organized assaults carried out by "local residents," according to the formula that gained currency particularly after 2017 during Aoun's presidency?
The most painful reality is that suffering Lebanese citizens paid the largest cost for these rocket cities, while the outcome today is the presence of hundreds of thousands of displaced individuals left out in the open to face their fate.
The "South" beneath the South and rocket cities should be the focal point of the greatest investigation to uncover those behind turning citizens into sandbags to defend weapons that caused the reduction of the South to ashes and the destruction of Lebanon.
