Middle East Minister Rt. Hon. Alistair Burt MP strongly condemned Hezbollah’s cross-border attack tunnels into northern Israel, amid an IDF operation launched at the start of this week to destroy the tunnels.
The Middle East Minister said the “UK condemns Hezbollah tunnels into northern Israel. This is a blatant disregard of UN resolutions, threatening Israel and Lebanon’s stability. UNSCR 1701 must be implemented. UK supports Israel’s right to defend itself”.
UNSCR resolution 1701 (2006) explicitly calls for disarming southern Lebanon and forbids the transfer of weapons to any non-military groups.
Earlier, during Foreign Office Questions in Parliament, Minister Burt underlined in response to Bob Blackman MP that the discovery of the tunnels “demonstrates continually the threat that there is towards the State of Israel from those who would mean it harm”. Click here to watch a video of the exchange.
British Ambassador to Israel, H.E. David Quarrey, posted on Twitter that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu briefed ambassadors on the Hezbollah tunnel threat. He published photos from the briefing and deplored Hezbollah’s actions: “We visited tunnel site close to the Blue Line. UK condemns such tunnels as blatant and destabilising violation of UN resolutions”.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) launched an operation in the early hours of Tuesday morning to destroy numerous cross-border attack tunnels that it said were dug by the Iran-backed terror group Hezbollah, into northern Israel from Lebanon.
The IDF says it launched Operation ‘Northern Shield’ to “expose, thwart and neutralise cross-border attack tunnels within Israel’s territory, dug by the terror organisation Hezbollah from Lebanon into Israel”, before they became operational and a threat to civilian communities.
So far, the IDF has destroyed a 200-metre cross-border attack tunnel dug by Hezbollah under a house in the Lebanese village of Kafr Kila, which extended 40 metres into Israeli territory between the communities of Metulla and Misgav Am. The 200-metre tunnel was reported to be two metres high by two metres wide, and contained electrical and communication lines, as well as ventilation.
The IDF released video footage depicting Hezbollah operatives working inside the tunnel on Tuesday morning. In the video, which was filmed by a small Israeli military robot, two men could be seen walking into the tunnel from the entrance inside Lebanon. The robot detonated a small charge next to suspected terror operative, scaring him away. Multiple reports identify one of the men seen in the footage as a senior member of Hezbollah.
