The military on Sunday said it began construction of an underground defense system Sunday along its northern frontier with Lebanon to protect against cross-border tunnels.
The infrastructure project will identify underground acoustic and seismic activity indicating tunnel digging, accompanied by other defensive measures, said IDF Spokesman in English Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus.
Follow Israel Hayom on Facebook and Twitter
Israel destroyed a series of terror tunnels last year, dug under the border by Hezbollah, an Iranian-backed Shiite terrorist group. T
Conricus said the construction would all be on the Israeli side of the border and that United Nations peacekeepers along the frontier had been notified.
He stressed that there was no new intelligence suggesting that Hezbollah was digging new tunnels in the area.
"What we are doing today is part of a larger plan," he said. "We understand that our activity may be seen and will be heard on the other side and we want to explain what we are we doing and why we are doing it. It is a matter of precaution."
Israel recently warned that Hezbollah had beefed up its presence along the volatile frontier.
Israel and Hezbollah's 2006 war ended in a UN-brokered cease-fire. While direct fighting has been rare since then, there has been occasional violence. The most recent flare-up was in September when Hezbollah fired a barrage of anti-tank missiles into Israel and Israel responded with artillery fire. There were no casualties on either side.
Israel also has acknowledged carrying out scores of airstrikes in neighboring Syria, many of them believed to have been aimed at Iranian weapons shipments bound for its Hezbollah proxy.
