Israel Kept Public In The Dark About Hezbollah Tunnels

Image by File
JERUSALEM (JTA) — Political and military leaders kept residents of Israel’s northern border in the dark about the presence of Hezbollah’s tunnels for years, telling them for years that the Lebanese terrorist organization was not digging under the border despite knowledge to the contrary.
Former Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon admitted the subterfuge during an interview with Army Radio on Thursday, following the launch of an operation dubbed Northern Shield to destroy the tunnels.
“We did it to mislead the other side,” he said in justification, explaining that his previous comments denying the existence of the tunnels were made “in order to preserve the security of the state.”
“Even today, I will continue to calm down northern residents,” he said. “None of the tunnels reach any of the communities where people said they’d heard [digging noises underground], nor to any home.”
Israel has brought members of the foreign diplomatic corps to view the operation. The IDF has stated that Hezbollah had hoped to use to tunnels to isolate the northern community of Metulla during a future conflict. Israel’s operation, which has so far not involved any direct combat with Hezbollah forces, has enjoyed widespread support, including from Bahrain, which called the tunnels “a flagrant threat to Lebanon’s stability.”
According to Haaretz, the IDF detected tunnels since the Second Lebanon War in 2006 and has been planning the current operation for a year, going to far as to send a small contingent of combat engineers to Europe to practice drilling on terrain similar to that of the Upper Galilee.
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a gift today!
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Most Popular
- 1
Fast Forward Why the Antisemitism Awareness Act now has a religious liberty clause to protect ‘Jews killed Jesus’ statements
- 2
Culture Trump wants to honor Hannah Arendt in a ‘Garden of American Heroes.’ Is this a joke?
- 3
Fast Forward The invitation said, ‘No Jews.’ The response from campus officials, at least, was real.
- 4
Opinion A Holocaust perpetrator was just celebrated on US soil. I think I know why no one objected.
In Case You Missed It
-
Culture What a lion, a rabbi, and a dog taught me about grief
-
Music After over decades of waiting, we’re finally getting a Bob Dylan-Barbra Streisand duet
-
Art How a Lower East Side Jew conquered the multiverse
-
Fast Forward Right-wing activists riot outside Israeli-Palestinian memorial event at Reform synagogue in Israel
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.