Inside Hezbollah’s tunnels: Lebanese army reveals yearlong disarmament work

Report by Edmond Sassine, English adaptation by Karine Keuchkerian

CNN’s team entered a Hezbollah tunnel alongside a large group of foreign, Arab, and Lebanese media during a tour organized by the Lebanese army south of the Litani River. 

The visit was not simply a tour marking one year since the ceasefire agreement, but a decision by the army, backed by the presidency and based on earlier recommendations from the ceasefire monitoring committee.

Over the past year, the Lebanese army quietly worked to implement the agreement, dismantling Hezbollah installations and collecting weapons and ammunition. Its silence stemmed from a desire to avoid local provocation, but that discretion also exposed its efforts to skepticism and to Israeli media propaganda. One military official said the army “paid a high price for its silence.”

The media tour came just weeks before the end of the army’s first phase of operations south of the Litani River and its full control of the sector. As part of the tour, journalists were taken into a tunnel similar to 177 others the army has dealt with over the past year.

The army also provided figures, maps, images, and footage revealed for the first time, documenting more than 30,000 operations and the seizure of 230,000 weapons and ammunition pieces, including 566 rocket launchers. It also reported shutting down 11 crossings along the Litani River.

The documented observations and field evidence counter Israeli propaganda and demonstrate the army’s ability to continue implementing the plan to restrict weapons, despite Israeli threats of launching a war to undermine Hezbollah’s military capabilities.

The roughly 40-minute walk through valleys to reach one of the Hezbollah tunnels the army seized in Wadi Zibqin illustrated the challenges of its mission in rugged, forested terrain. Discovering such installations is made more difficult by limited resources and the harsh conditions facing soldiers. 

Some were killed while dismantling military structures and tunnels.

The tour brought the army’s efforts into public view after months of being shown only to the ceasefire monitoring committee and U.N. forces. It also sent a clear signal about the need to support the military institution and give it the space and time to complete its plan, despite Israeli threats.

The effort now requires additional media tours, particularly for American outlets, to clearly present the army’s work to decision-making centers and reinforce the ongoing implementation of dismantling Hezbollah’s military capabilities.