Israel’s Campaign against Hezbollah and the Fight for Southern Lebanon’s Tunnels

Patrick Sullivan, John Spencer and John Amble

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“Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril.”

So warned Oscar Wilde in The Picture of Dorian Gray. Of course, his words of caution were aimed at consumers of art and not at twenty-first-century military forces. And yet for those forces, the peril beneath the surface is even more real. Even a military with extraordinary capabilities above the ground will quickly encounter extreme limitations to those capabilities below it.

So when the Israel Defense Forces acknowledged having been quietly carrying out raids into Hezbollah tunnels in southern Lebanon for months, the natural question for many observers was why. Examining that question highlights lessons on underground warfare, illuminates how Israel likely intends to treat Hezbollah’s tunnels in its plans for a broader campaign against the group, and offers a glimpse into the capabilities required to overcome the subterranean hazards of the modern battlefield.

Hezbollah’s Tunnels

Much is unknown about Hezbollah tunnels. Like the Hamas tunnels in Gaza that Israeli forces have contended with during their military campaign there, the only way to know for sure how many tunnels there are—and their scale, form, and purposes—is discovering them on the ground.