Israeli Commandos Operating Inside Lebanon to Remove Hezbollah

Four soldiers were wounded, one of them seriously, in a blast that occurred as troops operated several hundred meters inside Lebanese territory overnight, the Israel Defense Forces said Monday morning. The Hezbollah terror group took responsibility for the explosion on the border.

The cause of the blast that wounded the soldiers in the western region of the border with Lebanon was under investigation by the military, which said in a statement that the explosion was of “unknown origin.”

The military said the incident took place during “operational activity” carried out by troops of the Golani Brigade’s reconnaissance unit and the elite Yahalom combat engineering unit, on the Lebanese side of the border, several hundred meters from Israel’s fence.

The Yahalom (“Diamond”) unit deals with tunnels, suggesting that the IDF is looking to find and destroy Hezbollah tunnels, including perhaps some that are suspected of extending into Israel.

Israelis support military action against Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed terror organization that has been shelling Israeli towns since October in a show of support for the terrorist attack by Hamas, which is also backed by Iran.

Some 60,000 Israeli civilians have been evacuated from communities within four kilometers of the border, and have been living with relatives or in hotels for half a year — missing work, missing school, and missing home. Only farmers are allowed into the deserted areas to continue tending to their crops and animals.

An all-out war against Hezbollah would likely be a much more difficult conflict than the war in Gaza, since Hezbollah has a massive arsenal of rockets, ballistic missiles, mortars, and anti-tank weapons. It is armed, trained, and funded directly by Iran, which has more freedom to operate in Lebanon than it does in Gaza, due to the ease of access from Iranian-dominated Syria.