Israeli officials on Friday said their soldiers in southern Lebanon discovered an elaborate Hezbollah training center operating under the nose of a nearby U.N. outpost.
Israel Defense Forces troops have been conducting “limited, localized, targeted raids” in recent weeks in southern Lebanon designed to eliminate terrorists, locate weapons and dismantle Hezbollah’s infrastructure, IDF officials said on their Telegram messaging page.
The IDF troops located what appeared to be a Hezbollah terrorist training center 200 meters from a post occupied by soldiers from the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon.
“The compound was used by terrorists for training, studying and storing large quantities of weapons. The facility contained launchers prepared for firing at Israeli communities,” IDF officials said.
The Israeli soldiers also found Hezbollah documents and training manuals that detail the terror group’s operational methods. They also discovered maps of Israel, information about Israel’s military equipment and a tunnel system.
“The weapons were confiscated, and the compound was dismantled,” IDF officials said.
UNIFIL consists of 10,500 peacekeeping forces from about 50 troop-contributing countries. Its mission, which dates back to 1978, is to help produce peace and security and help the legitimate Lebanese government assume custody of the border region with Israel.