Israeli military demolishes Hezbollah tunnels in Lebanon

Janat Jalil (0:00)

This is The Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service.

I'm Janat Jalil, and at 5Hours GMT on Friday the 11th of September, these are our main stories. Israel blows up what it says was a Hezbollah underground tunnel system in the south of Lebanon. Israel's Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, says he'll launch defamation proceedings after a newspaper alleged he had prior warning of the deadly October 7th attacks carried out by Hamas, but did nothing. Also in this podcast, love, juice, best of five, is it time tennis got a reboot to widen its appeal?

Sonya Twigg (0:43)

It's not necessarily difficult to understand. I think if you did change it, you would miss the drama that comes with those particularly big points. I mean, you get so much more invested in it.

Janat Jalil (0:59)

We begin in Lebanon.

That's the sound of a massive blast carried out by the Israeli army using more than a thousand tons of explosives to demolish what it says was an extensive Hezbollah underground tunnel system in the south of the country. The blast at the Ali Tahrir Ridge, located within Israel's self-declared buffer zone in Lebanon, was so big that the US Geological Survey says it caused a 4.1 magnitude earthquake. I got more details from our Global Affairs correspondent, Ambar Hassan Eterajian.

Ambar Hassan Eterajian (1:38)

The Israeli military says that it has destroyed a nearly two kilometers long tunnel under this Ali Tahrir Ridge, which is about 15 kilometers from the Israel-Lebanon border. Now, this ridge itself is considered to be strategically important because the Israeli military was saying that it was used by the Hezbollah to fire missiles and drones from there into the Israeli territory. And this is about 600 meters tall and three kilometers long. So that gives enough space, according to the Israeli military, for the Hezbollah to operate. Now, since the war began in March, both sides have been fighting heavily with Israel moving into Lebanon, establishing what they call as a security zone.

Despite a ceasefire in June between Lebanon and Israel, US broke out one. The fighting continued around this area because, according to media reports, that Hezbollah refused to withdraw from this area to hand over control to the Lebanese army. And that led to renewed clashes, and it went on for weeks. And a few days ago, the Israeli army said they had retained control of this ridge. They found these tunnels with weapons, with shelters, with the command center, and all of them have been now destroyed in the tunnel explosion.

Janat Jalil (2:57)

And this was a really massive explosion, so powerful that there was an earthquake afterwards.

Ambar Hassan Eterajian (3:04)

So the military says, Israeli military, that they used more than 1,000 tons of explosives to destroy these tunnels. And the locals were talking about huge explosion, the sound and the tremors. And the US Geological Survey talked about more than 4.1 magnitude of this tremor.

And the Israeli media has also published pictures and the videos of several explosions, of fireball lighting the sky. Some of them are massive. They were continuous explosions. And it must have taken a while to plant these explosives inside these tunnels. So the whole idea was to deny the opportunity for Hezbollah, in the future, to use this area.

Janat Jalil (3:48)

Do we have any information about casualties, given the size of this explosion?

Ambar Hassan Eterajian (3:52)

Weeks long fighting between the two sides led to reports of several casualties, especially among Hezbollah fighters. But they have not commented fully on the explosion so far.

But there were continuous attacks by Israeli forces, including aircraft and artillery and drone targeting this particular area. This has been a hotly contested area. So possibilities there, there were several casualties, but we don't know exactly how many of them were killed or whether there were any casualties on the Israeli side as well. But what it gives a political advantage for Benjamin Netanyahu, the Prime Minister, is before the October elections, now he can tell his supporters that we have destroyed, we have taken back, we have taken control of this ridge and also destroyed the tunnel, which is a huge strategic victory.

Janat Jalil (4:46)

I'm Barosun Etirajian. Well, with elections in Israel just weeks away, the Prime Minister has told his lawyers to begin defamation proceedings against an Israeli newspaper that alleges Mr. Netanyahu was told in advance that Hamas was planning to carry out the October the 7th attacks. The Haaretz newspaper reported that the President of the United Arab Emirates warned Mr. Netanyahu just days before the Hamas attack three years ago, but that the Israeli Prime Minister did nothing with the information. Mr. Netanyahu's office has denied there was any warning, calling the report part of a quote sinister plot.