by Canaan Lidor
CENTCOM commander Brad Cooper said the tunnel's unearthing helped enforce the Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire.
U.S. Navy Adm. Brad Cooper, commander of U.S. Central Command, on Monday congratulated the Lebanese army on discovering a Hezbollah tunnel.
“Congratulations to the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) for recently finding a massive underground Hezbollah tunnel for the second time in the past two months,” Cooper, who heads the Department of Defense’s command for forces in the Middle East and Central and South Asia, wrote on X.
“Job well done by the Lebanese Armed Forces and U.S.-led Mechanism team that is helping enforce commitments made by Israel and Lebanon,” added Cooper.
Sarit Zehavi, the president of the Alma Research and Education Center, which focuses on security challenges along Israel’s northern border, also welcomed the find, but noted that it is “one of hundreds of Hezbollah tunnels in existence in Southern Lebanon and Lebanon.”
Israel has dismantled a significant part of the tunnels near its border, Zehavi told JNS on Tuesday, but Hezbollah’s many tunnels deeper inside Lebanese territory have not been damaged, Zehavi added.
The United States has pressured the Lebanese government to enforce the terms of the ceasefire that Hezbollah and Israel accepted in November 2024, which places the responsibility of dismantling the Shi’ite terrorist group on Lebanon.
Israel has repeatedly targeted Hezbollah and other terrorists in Lebanon since the coming into effect of the ceasefire, in strikes it says are meant to enforce its terms and prevent the terrorists from rebuilding their positions, mostly south of the Litani River.
The ceasefire went into effect on Nov. 27, 2024, following an IDF military campaign that led to the weakening of Hezbollah, an Iranian terror proxy. The deal was cemented by the Israeli and Lebanese governments and five mediating countries, including the United States.
“Dismantling tunnels nefariously used by non-state actors to store ammunition, missiles and attack drones promotes peace and stability in Lebanon and across the region,” Cooper also wrote on X on Monday.
Last month, the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office said in a statement that “efforts made” by Lebanon toward enforcing the ceasefire were “an encouraging beginning, but they are far from sufficient, as evidenced by Hezbollah’s efforts to rearm and rebuild its terror infrastructure with Iranian support.”
The earlier tunnel discovery referenced by Cooper was in December, when the Lebanese army uncovered an underground passage built by Hezbollah in the southern town of Touline, after carrying out an excavation at the request of the ceasefire oversight committee known as the Mechanism. Israel has previously struck the area, according to Lebanese media.
Hezbollah has built dozens of tunnels, some two miles or more in length, to facilitate the transfer of Iranian and other weapons into Lebanon from Syria. Other tunnels were built to either penetrate into Israeli territory or move troops stealthily close to the border.
Canaan Lidor
Source: https://www.jns.org/us-general-lauds-lebanese-discovery-of-hezbollah-tunnel/
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