The world’s eyes are once again focused on the south of Lebanon, as the Israel Defense Forces continue their war against Hezbollah.
The IDF took me into Lebanon Saturday to see firsthand some of what they have already found.
The timing was important because the Israelis this week got caught in a battle of more than words with the United Nations “peacekeeping force” in the area.
Five UN force members have been wounded in recent days. The IDF has taken responsibility for several of these accidental cases, although two days ago it was Hezbollah that hit a UN peacekeeper.
Still, the fact is that ever since the 2006 war here ended, the UN’s peacekeeping force has been not just useless but worse than useless.
They were meant to be here to ensure that peace was kept on this tinderbox of a border. But for the past year they have sat useless as Hezbollah has fired tens of thousands of rockets from southern Lebanon into Israel.
And as I reported in The Post last year, I have seen footage of these “peacekeepers” coming out of their bases, Hezbollah firing rockets over their heads into Israel only for the UN peacekeepers to do a U-turn and simply return to base.
Worse is the UN resolution that ended the 2006 war — Resolution 1701 — was meant to prevent Hezbollah from rebuilding its stockpile of weapons aimed at Israel.
That resolution was never implemented. Since 2006, Iran is believed to have gathered some 160,000 long- and short-range rockets in position in southern Lebanon.
Hezbollah has been firing them since Oct. 8 of last year, forcing tens of thousands of Israelis out of their homes in the north of the country.
Underground operation
On Sunday, I saw with my own eyes how this had happened. A short way inside Lebanon, the IDF showed me two Hezbollah tunnels — right near the Israeli border.
These had been built in the hope of carrying out a Hamas-style Oct. 7 attack on Israel. And also to store and fire rockets into northern Israel.
The ground in Lebanon is rocky — not sandy like Gaza — and these are serious, deep tunnels. But the tunnel shafts opened not much more than 100 meters away from a giant UN peacekeeping base and observation point.
How is it possible that the kind of heavy digging needed to create these tunnels could have happened literally right under the noses of the UN? Were they not looking? Did they even care?
The answer seems to be a very obvious “no.” They decided not to look. The international peacekeeping force has been a joke for years.
After all, what Irish or Sri Lankan soldier is going to put their lives at risk to enforce a mere UN resolution? Or do anything to protect the State of Israel from Iran-backed terrorists?
These tunnels go deep into the ground and connect with each other — just as Hamas’ terror tunnels do in Gaza. But these have an even more deadly potential.
The Israeli air force has in recent weeks destroyed perhaps more than half of Hezbollah’s stockpile. As well as taking out almost all of the group’s leadership.
Not least the US Marine-murdering Hassan Nasrallah.
Despite the IDF’s achievements in recent weeks, army members on Friday told me they were “astonished” by the capabilities of Hezbollah that they have so far found in their ground operations in Lebanon.
In a single square kilometer they told me that they had found more than 100 tunnel shafts like these. All filled with ammunition, blood units and other medical gear bearing the label “Made in Iran.”
Further along, inside Lebanon, only a few hundred meters from the Israeli border, the IDF led me through an area of densely built-up forest.
The IDF has been trying to clear this area of tunnel entrances, rocket launch sites and other terror infrastructure.
We walk along a path in the forest that Hezbollah had made themselves. The clear markers on the trees are there to guide Hezbollah terrorists.
The IDF has cleared the narrow path of those booby-traps and other surprises that Hezbollah likes to leave.
And in the middle of the forest we come across one of many Hezbollah hiding places, complete with arms dump.
The station has been recently abandoned, but it was an area that a cell of perhaps 10 Hezbollah terrorists were recently bunkering down in. They left much of their kit on the way out.
700+ hidden hoards
This includes not just Hezbollah uniforms and vests, but all of the group’s other necessities. There are mines — including ones that are used to blow open walls.
Now that we know that Hezbollah was planning an Oct. 7-style attack from the north, it is clear that this was one of their ways to break into Israel, just like their friends in Hamas broke in from the south.
The Hezbollah terrorists who recently left this camp left other things behind, too: pipe bombs, other explosives, many rounds of bullets.
The writing on these items shows where they came from. And how recently.
There are items — including medical kits — that show they were acquired in the last year from Iran. But there are other items that reveal that new weaponry has also arrived from Russia and North Korea.
The Israeli military tells me that in this portion of Lebanon alone they have already found more than 700 caches of weapons like this.
It is testament to the hundreds of millions of dollars that Hezbollah has spent on building up its terror infrastructure, destroying the lives of the people of Lebanon as well as Israel. That includes $1 billion each year from the Revolutionary government in Iran.
With typical cynicism, the hiding place has water and electricity cable connections to two nearby Lebanese villages.
Of course, this puts the lives of these villagers at risk. But of course Hezbollah doesn’t care. Guided by its paymasters in Iran it has simply been intent on a war of annihilation against Israel.
That war may be about to heat up again this week. But if it does, a great deal of the blame should go to precisely those international bodies that preach the importance of “cease-fire” and “peace.”
There would be no need for another war in Lebanon if the UN had actually done its job for the past 18 years.
As I drive south from the border, rockets start to land again all over northern and central Israel — leaving some 67 people in the Jewish state wounded in Haifa.
And the sound of Israel’s response rings out, too. The UN will now castigate Israel and America for not implementing a cease-fire in the region.
On the basis of what I have just seen, perhaps someone could remind the UN that they helped start this fire.
