Hezbollah is demonstrating its ‘clandestine’ capabilities as part of its psychological warfare with Israel
A video released by the Party of Allah reveals the size of the facility and its vast underground reach, where rocket launchers move between tunnels and Hezbollah members roam with their motorbikes inside
Lebanon's Hezbollah Party of Allah is flexing its muscles in the face of Israeli threats to invade southern Lebanon, amid unprecedented tensions in the region that have prompted the United States to bolster its forces.
Tunnels and rocket launchers
The pro-Iran group on Friday unveiled a military facility called "Emad 4" containing huge tunnels and large rocket launchers amid unprecedented escalation on the border with Israel, as well as fears of an all-out regional war following the assassination of the head of Hamas's political body, Ismail Haniyeh, in Tehran.
The party's military media transmitted via Telegram a short video showing from inside the ‘Emad 4’ facility, which contains several rocket launchers and military equipment in huge underground tunnels.
What is notable in the video is the size of the facility and its vast underground reach, as rocket launchers move between the tunnels and Hezbollah members roam with their motorbikes inside.
Military media explained that "the facility is not only far from hostile (Israeli) intelligence capabilities, but also provides protection against hostile targets".
Attached to the video was an earlier statement by Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah, in which he said that resistance rockets cover the entire Palestinian territory "from Kiryat Shmona (north) to Eilat (south)".
The video showed a picture of Imad Mughniyeh, the party's military officer who was killed in Syria in 2005 and succeeded by Fouad Shukr, who was killed by Israel in Beirut on 30 July.
Message to Israel
A source in the Allah Party explained that the video is "a message to the enemy (Israel) that any proactive move against the party's capabilities will be a failure, as the facility is one of a series of facilities that do not know where it starts and where it ends".
The source added, preferring not to be identified, that "the facility is numbered 4, which means that what is hidden is bigger than before and after".
The video was seen as an attempt to show strength in light of threats made by Iran and its proxies in the region to launch an attack on the Arab state after the assassination of party leader Haniyeh and Fouad Shukr.
The pro-Iran group has a military arsenal obtained from Iran of thousands of rockets and drones, some of which were used to bomb Israeli positions, while Hassan Nasrallah threatened to attack Tel Aviv if the Jewish state attacked the capital Beirut.
The tunnels raise concerns for Israel, as the Israeli army has failed to destroy Hamas tunnels in the besieged enclave, while the Allah Party's tunnels in southern Lebanon will pose the biggest challenge.
New attacks
On Thursday, the Party of Allah announced the targeting of the new settlement of Shamir in northern Israel with Katyusha rockets for the first time since the exchange of fire between the two sides began more than 10 months ago.
The Israeli army also announced on Thursday that it had detected the launching of 25 rockets and a drone from Lebanon at different areas in northern Israel.
Since 8 October 2023, Lebanese and Palestinian factions in Lebanon, in particular the Party of Allah and the Israeli army, have exchanged daily shelling across the Blue Line separation, resulting in hundreds of deaths and injuries, most of them on the Lebanese side.
The factions are relying on Israel to end its US-backed war on the Gaza Strip since 7 October, which has left more than 132,000 Palestinians dead and wounded, mostly children and women, and more than 10,000 missing, in one of the world's worst humanitarian disasters.
