IDF: Hizbullah Attempting To Seal Entrances To Cross-border Attack Tunnels

The Israel Defense Forces accused Hizbullah of attempting to seal off or conceal the entry points in Lebanese territory of its attack tunnels stretching into Israel. The Israeli military also stressed that the four subterranean structures thus far exposed as part of Operation Northern Shield are constantly being surveilled and have been rigged with explosives to ensure they cannot be used ahead of their demolition. Israel has for years held that Iran’s Lebanon-based  proxy is violating United Nations Security Council resolution 1701—which set the terms for ending the 2006 war between the sides—by militarizing the buffer zone established along the shared frontier and by amassing an estimated 130,000 projectiles. The UNSC is set to convene Wednesday to discuss the tunnel system that UNIFIL, the international force monitoring the border, described as a “matter of serious concern.” To this end, the head of the UN peacekeeping mission met earlier this week with Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri, who vowed that his country’s army would “conduct patrols to deal with any flaw in the implementation of resolution 1701 from the Lebanese side.”