Khader Adnan, a member of Palestinian terrorist group Islamic Jihad who was accused by Israel of terror charges, died in an Israeli prison on Tuesday after an 87-day hunger strike, prison authorities said.

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Israel said Adnan "refused to undergo medical tests and receive medical treatment" and "was found unconscious in his cell" early on Tuesday morning. Israeli prison authorities said Adnan was evacuated to hospital after failed attempts to revive him and was pronounced dead. Adnan's lawyer accused Israel of medical negligence. "After 36 days of Adnan's arrest, we demanded he is moved into a civilian hospital where he can be properly followed up. Unfortunately, such a demand was met by intransigence and rejection by the Israeli prison authorities," lawyer Jamil Al-Khatib told Reuters by phone. Shortly after Adnan's death was announced, sirens rang out in Israeli-Gaza border communities, sending residents running for shelter. The IDF said three rockets were fired from the Gaza Strip toward Israeli territory, but fell in open areas.

Video: Reuters / Palestinian hunger striker Khader Adnan dies in Israeli prison

"Our fight is continuing and the enemy will realize once again that its crimes will not pass without a response. Resistance will continue by all might and determination," Palestinian Islamic Jihad said in a statement. Adnan, 45, originally from the city of Jenin, was a known PIJ figure in the West Bank. Like Islamist Hamas, PIJ opposes peace deals between the Palestinians and Israel and advocates the destruction of Israel. According to the Palestinian Prisoners Association, Adnan had been detained by Israel 12 times, spending around eight years in prison, mostly under administrative detention.

Israel accused Adnan of supporting terror, affiliation with a terror group, and incitement. He went on at least five hunger strikes during his various times in detention since 2004.

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The IDF launched airstrikes on Gaza Strip on Thursday after terrorists fired six rockets from the Palestinian enclave toward the country's south early Thursday, hours after a counterterrorism raid in Nablus triggered a fierce gun battle in which 11 Palestinians were killed, including 4 terrorists.

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The rocket attacks, which were not immediately claimed by Palestinian groups, appear to be triggered by the Wednesday morning raid in Nablus.

Video: Reuters / Israeli strikes hits Gaza after rockets fired overnight

The Israeli military said air defense Iron Dome systems intercepted five of the rockets which were fired toward the cities of Ashkelon and Sderot. One missile landed in an open field. There were no reports of damage or casualties.

Among the dead in Nablus were three Palestinian men, ages 72, 66, and 61, and a 16-year-old boy, according to health officials. Palestinians claim more than 100 others were wounded.

It was one of the bloodiest battles in nearly a year of fighting in the West Bank and east Jerusalem and raised the likelihood of further bloodshed. Israeli police said they were on heightened alert, while the Hamas terrorist group in Gaza said its patience was "running out." Palestinian Islamic Jihad, another group, vowed to retaliate.

The four-hour operation left a broad swath of damage in a centuries-old marketplace in Nablus, a city known as a militant stronghold.

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Prime Minister Naftali Bennett touched on rocket fire toward central Israel at the first cabinet meeting of the new year on Sunday.

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On Saturday, Hamas opted to usher in 2022 by firing two rockets at central Israel. In response, IDF fighter jets, helicopters, and tanks targeted a number of the group's military targets in the Gaza Strip overnight Saturday and early Sunday.

The rockets landed off the coast and there were no reports of wounded or damage. As per protocol, because the rockets were on course to land in the sea, no sirens were activated and they were not intercepted. Tel Aviv residents reported hearing explosions off the coast as the rockets fell.

The IDF said airstrikes hit a rocket manufacturing facility, while tanks fired on several Hamas outposts on the border.

"As fireworks lit up the skies to celebrate #NewYear2022 around the world, a different type of fire came from Gaza – terrorist rocket fire toward Israel," the IDF said on Twitter.

Speaking at the cabinet meeting, Bennett said, "The air force attacked several targets in Hamas' rocket manufacturing compound in Khan Younis last night. In addition, the IDF also attacked Hamas positions on the border.

"These strikes are a response to the rocket fire yesterday [Saturday] toward the Mediterranean coast. I want to make something clear: all Hamas' stories about thunder and lightning [causing the rockets to go off]  which are repeated every winter, are no longer relevant. Anyone who aims rockets at Israel will bear the responsibility," Bennett said.

The IDF stressed that Hamas was responsible for what took place in Gaza and would carry the ramifications for any terrorist actions carried out from the Gaza Strip.

Video filmed in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip showed three huge explosions and fighter jets could be heard flying overhead.

Hamas Radio said some of the group's security posts and a training camp were targeted by Israeli aircraft and tanks. There were no immediate reports of casualties.

A source in the terrorist organizations said the rockets had been fired due to "weather conditions." However, various reports in Arab media outlets said that the rocket fire had been intentional and carried out by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

Recently, the PIJ issued threated that if Hisham Abu Hawash, one of its members currently on a hunger strike in an Israeli prison, dies, the group will treat his death as a "targeted killing" and "act accordingly."

On Saturday, the PIJ declared that it held Israel "completely responsible" for the continued decline of Abu Hawash's health.

The news site Falastin al-Youm, identified with the PIJ, reported Saturday that any Israeli response to the latest rocket fire would be "met with a violent response."

Egyptian media reported that Cairo has intervened and called on both sides to deescalate.

Reuters contributed to this report.

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Israel has completed construction of an anti-tunnel barrier around the Gaza Strip, Defense Minister Benny Gantz announced Tuesday afternoon.

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The barrier took four years of work and $1.1 billion to build, and features sections both above and below ground.

With the massive 32.8-foot-high barrier that stretches across 40 miles, Israel hopes to end the threat of cross-border attack tunnels from the Palestinian coastal enclave.

"This barrier, a creative, technological project of the first order, denies Hamas one of the capabilities that it tried to develop and puts a wall of iron, sensors and concrete between it and the residents of the south," Gantz said at a ceremony.

"Daily routine is our victory, and it is the terrorist groups' biggest enemy. We'll keep preparing to neutralize every capability of attacking the citizens of Israel, with an emphasis on the threat of rockets, which is in our sights. We will prevent the flow of Iranian technology and knowledge into Gaza, and will continue to thwart any attempt by Hamas to activate its satellites in Judea and Samaria or Israel – attempts that have repeatedly failed," he said.

Gantz also warned that Israel could be seeing a "calm before the storm," following recent threats from Hamas and other Palestinian terrorist groups, which criticize "the slowness of the reconstruction of Gaza."

IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Aviv Kochavi called the new barrier "part of Israel's defense philosophy of an 'iron wall' on land, in the air, at sea, and in general."

According to Kochavi, the barrier "represents outside-the-box thinking and expresses the kind of thinking to which we in the IDF are committed. The barrier changes the reality – what used to be will no longer exist. This might be a quiet period, but looking back at the last few months shows us that we responded heavily to even 'minor' violations, and will do so in future. We're upgrading our defense, but we remember that victory is secured through offense, and we are strengthening our offensive capabilities constantly and significantly."

Kochavi thanked all the prime ministers, defense ministers, and IDF commanders who "turned this vision into a reality," noting in particular former Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. (res.) Gadi Eizenkot, the heads of the IDF's Southern Command, and the Gaza Division.

Since Operation Guardian of the Walls in May, Israel and Hamas have been negotiating an extended ceasefire, which would see additional aid and international assistance flowing into Gaza in exchange for calm.

However, Israel conditioned the complete reconstruction of Gaza on the return of the remains of two Israeli civilians and two fallen IDF soldiers held by Hamas.

For its part, the terrorist group has insisted that it will not release them as long as Israel refuses to release a large number of Palestinian terrorists in Israeli prisons.

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The Israel Defense Forces are developing upgraded intelligence and firepower strike capabilities, and is drilling these new abilities on a regular basis. At the same time, Israeli intelligence sources acknowledge that Hezbollah has morphed from a guerilla-terror organization into an organized terror army.

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These developments were clearly on display this month, during an extensive war drill conducted by the IDF's 36th Armored Division, a multi-arena division capable of maneuvering into enemy territory and attacking targets in a range of ways.

"We are preparing ourselves in better ways. We hope we don't have to get there,"  said Deputy Intelligence Officer for the 36th Armored Division Maj. A, during the drill.

When assessing Hezbollah, Maj. A stated that the Iranian-backed Shiite group has learned from its experience in Syria's battlefield how to go on the offensive.

As opposed to only trying to target IDF patrols with IEDs, anti-tank missiles and other guerilla tactics, Hezbollah of 2021 is focused on mobilizing forces into Israeli territory and employing tactical lessons it has learned from its partners in Syria since 2011.

"They will look to achieve a very big success early on in a conflict or a serious 'success' against the [Israeli] civilian front," he cautioned. This could mean attacking an Israeli village near the Lebanese border and holding families hostage, exploiting Israel's heightened sensitivity to the welfare of its civilians.

Hezbollah will "look to achieve its objective early on, allow the media coverage to go viral, and after that, it doesn't care what happens in the rest of the war. It will have its picture − Israelis embarrassed on the world stage," the intelligence officer said, providing an insight into Hezbollah's strategy.

Drawing on its experience in Syria, Hezbollah has spent the past decade planning attacks into the Galilee, deploying thousands of armed operatives "the second the war starts." The IDF's destruction of cross-border Hezbollah tunnels in 2018-19 put a dent in those plans, though Hezbollah is planning new overland attacks and collecting intelligence on the IDF's day-to-day activities as part of its "early achievement" strategy.

When it comes to Hezbollah's large projectile arsenal, estimated at 140,000-plus, the organization understands that rockets form a "very practical weapon" when fired from civilian areas at civilian areas, said Maj. A.

It has closely been studying Hamas' rocket attacks against Israel and "trying to understand what the best way to challenge us is in the next conflict," he added.

Hezbollah also has some 100,000 mortars deployed on the border, aimed at villages and frontline IDF posts within a 10-kilometer (six-mile) radius. "This is a rate of fire we are not used to."

'The strength of the urban system'

In light of this challenge, the IDF has not been resting on its laurels. In addition to developing unprecedented airpower strike capabilities – based on unleashing thousands of munitions every 24 hours – the IDF is planning its next ground offensive to be nothing like past operations and wars.

A core part of this change is the ability to gather the most precise intelligence in real time and send it to just the right company, battalion, brigade and division in the field, enabling the rapid, surgical destruction of enemy targets and minimal harm to noncombatants, explained Maj. A.

With Hezbollah deeply embedded in the Shiite civilian population of southern Lebanese villages, coupled with its fortifications and posts in those villages, the IDF's dependence on rapid, reliable intelligence is more important than ever.

The goal, said Maj. A, is for maneuvering forces to be able to see the enemy, tell it apart from noncombatants, and be precise and lethal all at the same time.

Much of the intelligence picture is "under the surface, in more ways than one," said Maj. A. Hezbollah is deployed both in Lebanon and in Syria, backed by the Iranians. The Islamic Republic is building a pipeline of munitions that travels from Iran into Iraq, and ends up in Syria and Lebanon, impacting the entire Middle East.

Hezbollah has amassed a drone fleet for intelligence and attack capabilities they can use against both Israeli civilians and the IDF.

"When you build a capability you believe in, this also makes you more ambitious. You develop it by yourself, see it succeed – and this gives you more nerve," Maj. A. said, providing a glimpse into Hezbollah's mindset.

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Using schools, mosques and hospitals is a core part of Hezbollah's modus operandi, as well as concealing itself with mass human-shielding tactics to make it harder for the IDF to respond.

Hezbollah looks "ahead of time at the terrain where it thinks we will enter certain areas from and make use of that terrain. It will set up observation posts in high access points. It will take anti-tank missiles … Russian products and places them in specific vantage points. It builds underground fortifications within the center of urban areas, next to civilian sites," said Maj. A. "That's the strength of the urban system we maneuver in, and the battleground is a civilian battleground whether we like it or not. That's the challenge that makes us have to be precise."

Hezbollah's capabilities also include making use of the electromagnetic spectrum for jamming and for intelligence collection.

'A war between two ideologies'

In light of the above, the IDF General Staff has instructed the military to build the ability to flow relevant intelligence directly down to the maneuvering units in a fast, accurate manner. Otherwise, the officer said, the intelligence will simply be irrelevant or will not enable effective action.

The division-wide exercise tests just this ability. End-to-end intelligence was streamed to the division's brigades, including through the use of a new intelligence center in central Israel that sifts through massive quantities of data and highlights relevant insights for those in the field.

Signals intelligence, human intelligence, visual intelligence – all are fused into a big picture of the combat arena, and teams put it together like a jigsaw puzzle into a relevant "product." This then turns into "targeting packages" that are sent with the press of a button" to the ground forces.

"This allows us to be more relevant against the enemy and more lethal. But more importantly, it allows us to avoid innocent casualties," said the source.

The exercise saw units examine terrain, enemy activity in civilian infrastructure and then initiate a full process of preparing strikes for the battlefield.

Many of these capabilities rely on new advances in digital combat capabilities and intelligence-gathering means. Asking the right questions and getting the relevant answers to those who need it in the line of fire is critical, said Maj. A, describing a shift towards "intelligence-oriented warfare."

"We're interested in peace, in the status quo," he said, adding that he assessed that Hezbollah is not interested in a conflict right now either. However, the history of this troubled region has already demonstrated that this is no guarantee that one won't erupt suddenly anyway.

The fact that Hezbollah has been seeking to develop precision-guided missiles, for example, is an explosive red line that Israel has said it will enforce. If Israel is forced to take preemptive action, that could form a trigger for a wider conflict.

Similarly, Iran's nuclear program continues to lurk in the background as a potential trigger point for regional conflict despite Israel's obvious preference for the status quo.

If Iran orders Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah to act, he will most likely do so since Iran is the source of funding leading to Hezbollah's force build-up, and Iran is the party telling Hezbollah what to do in Syria.

"Nasrallah is a very religious man and will follow what the [Iranian] supreme leaders tell him," said Maj. A.

Israel is warier these days of attempting to predict Nasrallah's precise future moves after recent years have shown that he is more than capable of unexpected action, added to the very different cultural mentality that guides his worldview compared to the West.

The 36th Division's drill was joined by the IDF's Golani Brigade. During the drill, Col. Barak Hiram, brigade commander, stated: "The challenge isn't to win a battle against several Hezbollah fighters; we know how to do that very well. Western armies know how to do that. The main challenge is to win the entire war – and to stay humane. To win and to stay with our morals."

He pointed out that an Israel-Hezbollah war is not only an armed conflict but a war between two ideologies, with Israel at the forefront of Western modern democracies confronting Islamic fundamentalist ideologies.

"If we win the battle but lose the war because we become one of them; this is victory for their morals," he said, explaining just how critical it was for the IDF to strike the right balance between combat effectiveness and sticking to its own rules of engagement.

"In any escalation entering Lebanon, we very much will put the focus on how to kill as many Hezbollah combatants as possible and destroy military infrastructure without harming the civilian population," he added.

During the 2006 Second Lebanon War, in which Hiram was wounded, the Israeli government decided not to move forward into Lebanon, creating a static war in which the IDF held ground that it captured and stopped moving ahead.

"I think that most of our plans for the next time will be much more active, including maneuvering further on, which will take the Hezbollah organization to different dilemmas that it did not have in 2006," he said.

Asked by JNS whether this meant an IDF maneuver into Beirut, Hiram stated that no one knows for sure how wars end.

"We are here to stay for good. Lebanon is here to stay," said Hiram. "We are willing and hoping that one day, we'll be able to have peace with the Lebanese state that is on our northern border.

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

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During 2014's Operation Protective Edge against Hamas infrastructure in the Gaza Strip, jewelry designer Inbal Duvdevani noticed a rocket that had fallen near her studio on Kibbutz Nirim and rattled her world.

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"I took a few pieces of shrapnel and kept them as souvenirs," Duvdevani says.

"Because the kibbutz is always in range of rocket fire in every round of fighting, kids would collect the pieces of shrapnel that fell, and so would my son, who collected them and added them to a box that was in the closet," she continues.

After Operation Protective Edge was over, Duvdevani visited the US to take part in an expo intended to promote business from southern Israel. She took the box of shrapnel with her to show visitors with what residents of Israel's south were forced to contend.

"When I displayed the box, someone came up to me and wanted to take a few as a souvenir, and mentioned that if I made jewelry from it, he'd be the first to buy them. When I got back to Israel, it stayed in my mind."

It took Duvdevani two more years until she dared take the box of shrapnel out of the closet and start turning its contents into jewelry.

"After all, it was a tool of war that killed and wounded people I know. But two years on, I decided that I wanted to turn the war into love, and I started crafting jewelry that combine gold and shrapnel, the same rocket that landed next to my studio. After a few tries, I designed jewelry and put them up for sale."

Duvdevani, 41, was born in the western Negev and has lived there all her life. Today, she is a resident of Moshav Sadeh Nitzan in the Eshkol Regional Council. For 25 years she has designed and sold jewelry at her studio on Kibbutz Nirim.

"It's not easy living in the western Negev. Managing an independent business there is hard," she acknowledges.

With assistance and mentorship from the Lauder Employment Center, which works to promote small businesses in Israel's periphery, Duvdevani launched a website through which she sells her creations. Her collection includes pieces made from gold, gold-filled, and silver as well as the items from mortars, which have proved popular and some of which are already sold out.

"Instead of being afraid of the material that's sent to kill us, I chose to make lemons into lemonade and design jewelry from it," she tells Israel Hayom. The designer says that responses have varied widely: "There are people who when they hear that the jewelry is made of a mortar or rocket are put off and don't want it, even if the piece appealed to them originally. On the other hand, there are people who say they have to have it and also ask me to design more for them."

Duvdevani says that during Operation Guardian of the Walls, the loaded issue returned. "People reached out and ordered presents like keychains and necklaces to give them to people who hosted them in other places in Israel. This is material sent to kill us, but I'm proving that things can be different and we can approach it from a stronger place."

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Oracle opened the first of two planned public cloud centers in Israel on Wednesday, enabling companies and other Israeli customers to keep their data on local servers rather than rely on other countries.

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The underground data center is nine floors – about 50 meters (164 feet) – below one of Jerusalem's technology parks. Designed to operate in the face of potential terror acts, the center is estimated to have cost hundreds of millions of dollars.

"This facility ... can withstand a rocket direct hit, a missile direct hit or even a car bomb – and  the services will keep running with customers not even knowing that something so horrible has happened," Eran Feigenbaum, Oracle's Israel manager, told Reuters.

The site, which has its own generators in case of power loss, is one of 30 such cloud centers globally. Until now, the closest to Israel was in the United Arab Emirates. Oracle also has a research and development center in Israel.

Feigenbaum said there will be a second data center in Israel as part of a plan to open 14 more centers by the end of 2022 to meet growing demand from Israeli technology companies and serve as a back-up to ensure data stays within Israel's borders.

Oracle has already signed up a number of customers in Israel, Feigenbaum said.

The company has said its cloud operation has been gaining momentum globally in the past year by adding video conferencing platforms Zoom and 8X8 in addition to being a security partner of the US government.

For Israeli companies, having a local cloud could reduce costs because they would have the ability to rent storage instead of building their own servers or relying on other countries.

"They will not have to move to Silicon Valley or other places. They can do everything from here, with strong back-up and short distances," said Communications Minister Yoaz Hendel.

"It's good for us to keep our own information inside Israel."

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The reconstruction of homes in the Gaza Strip destroyed or damaged during Operation Guardian of the Walls in May will begin in the first week of October using aid from Qatar, a senior Gazan housing official said on Sunday.

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Gaza's Hamas-run government says that during the 11-day operation against Hamas terrorist infrastructure in Gaza, some 2,000 homes were destroyed by Israeli airstrikes and another 37,000 sustained damage.

The 4,400 rockets launched by Hamas and other Gaza-based terrorist groups caused massive damage to numerous Israeli homes, and also killed 11 Israeli civilians – including a 16-year-old girl and a five-year-old boy, and one IDF soldier. Two more civilians were killed while running for shelter. Some 680 of the rockets landed inside Gaza, causing damage and casualties.

Gaza's deputy minister for housing and public works, Naji Sarhan, said that the first phase of the reconstruction would rebuild some 1,800 of the damaged Gazan homes.

Sarhan said Israel had lifted some restrictions on steel and cement entering the territory in recent days. Last week, Egypt began repairing Gaza's main coastal road, part of a broader plan to revamp Gaza infrastructure.

Following the May 21 ceasefire, mediated by Egypt, access to reconstruction funds and materials has been a key Hamas demand. Following an agreement with the United Nations and Qatar, Israel allowed about $20 million in aid from the Gulf state to enter Gaza this month. That disbursement will be followed by $50 million of Qatari funds earmarked for rebuilding homes, Sarhan said.

Gaza officials estimate it will take $479 million to rebuild homes and infrastructure. Qatar and Egypt have each pledged $500 million for Gaza reconstruction.

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This summer, more than 100 children ages six to 16 from communities bordering the Gaza Strip attended a summer camp run by the Jewish Agency's Fund for Victims of Terrorism.

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The Fund was set up to help victims of violence, including those who suffer from deep trauma and anxiety associated with frequent exposure to rocket fire from the Gaza Strip towards their communities.

The children who participated in the camp came from Sderot, Ashkelon, Beersheba or Rahat.

The campers used swimming pools, visited the safari park and an amusement park, and took part in an activity organized by the NATAL Association for Youth designed to ease tension through theatrical improvisation.

"For these children who face a complex reality, many of whom suffer from post-traumatic stress, the camp is designed to facilitate their mental coping mechanisms and to strengthen their resilience," said former MK Ayelet Nahmias-Verbin who now serves as president of the Jewish Agency for Victims of Terrorism Fund.

"The support of the global Jewish community, through the Terrorism Victims Fund, reminds residents of Israeli communities near Gaza that they are not alone," Nahmias-Verbin said.

The initiative was supported by generous donations from the global Jewish community, including the Jewish Federations of North America (JFNA), Keren Hayesod, the Genesis Philanthropy Group and donors from the Jewish world, in cooperation with the Shaar Hanegev Regional Council.

This article was first published by i24NEWS

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A new report released on Thursday by the Alma Center, which researches security challenges to Israel from Lebanon and Syria, exposed what it described as a large-scale inter-regional Hezbollah tunnel system in different parts of Lebanon. The tunnel system is designed to move personnel and weapons around and out of the sight of the Israel Defense Forces.

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Some of the tunnels are large enough for pick-up trucks with multi-barrel rocket launchers – like the one used by Hezbollah to fire on Israel last week – to move dozens of kilometers underground, according to the report, meaning that the truck can fire on Israel, vanish into a tunnel and re-emerge dozens of kilometers away.

The network of tunnels could be connecting the Beirut area, Hezbollah's central headquarters, and the Beqaa area, Hezbollah's logistical operational rear base, to southern Lebanon, according to the report.

"In our estimation, the cumulative length of all the tunnels can reach up to hundreds of kilometers," it wrote. Like Hamas tunnels, the Lebanese tunnels contain underground command and control rooms, weapons and supply depots, field hospitals and shafts used to fire a wide range of rockets and missiles.

The shafts "open for a short period of time for the purpose of firing their armament and are then immediately shut closed for the purpose of reloading the hydraulic launcher with new ordinance," it added.

'This has been happening in Lebanon for a long time'

Maj. (res.) Tal Beeri, head of the research department at Alma, said the tunnel network in Lebanon is similar to the strategic network built by Hamas in the Gaza Strip, only larger.

"What we saw in Hamas in Gaza is a small example of what Hezbollah has in Lebanon," stated Beeri, who served for 20 years in the IDF's Military Intelligence Directorate.

"Hamas didn't invent tunnels," explained Beeri. "Usually, Hamas is the last in the food chain when it comes to new tools used by the radical axis. The discovery of the tunnel network in Gaza leads to the conclusion that this has been happening in Lebanon for a long time. The Iranians and North Koreans are mentors for both organizations. Hamas are the ones copying here. Hezbollah are usually the pioneers. So imagine what is happening in Lebanon now."

Regarding the Lebanese tunneling network project, said Beeri, "we assess that this began possibly before 2006, but there is no doubt that it gained significant momentum after that year."

The tunnel project is the result of close cooperation between North Korea, Iran, which paid for the project and supported it, and Hezbollah. The triangle of cooperation between these three entities goes back to the 1980s, added Beeri.

Since 2006, "North Korean advisors significantly assisted Hezbollah's tunnel project. Hezbollah, inspired and supported by the Iranians, saw North Korea as a professional authority on the subject of tunneling, based on the expansive North Korean experience that has accumulated in building tunnels for military use since the 1950s," the report stated.

In 2018, the IDF exposed six offensive Hezbollah cross-border tunnels excavated into Israeli territory. Their discovery spelled the end of the concept held by some in Israel that the challenge of breaking rocks in mountainous areas as in Lebanon was a serious barrier to Hezbollah tunnel building, said Beeri.

A second type of tunnel network, described by Beeri as local infrastructure tunnels, is located within and near the Shi'ite villages that act as Hezbollah's staging areas.

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But the report exposed a new, third type of tunnel, which it called "inter-regional tunnels of enormous magnitude, spanning at least tens of kilometers" across Lebanon.

'We connected eyewitness reports of the digging work'

"In 2008, we uncovered an indication from Christian Lebanese information source, describing a big project by Hezbollah in whole of areas of Southern Lebanon, which began east of Sidon," said Beeri.

He then described getting access to eyewitness accounts from local residents who were stopped by Hezbollah from entering certain areas. "They didn't understand why Hezbollah was stopping them. What they could see was what resembled industrial work, sand, digging, concrete in the area. But nothing was being built overground. They saw Iranians and foreign nationals that they later realized were North Koreans," said Beeri.

Later on, Alma got hold of a map of Southern Lebanon divided up into polygon shapes, and within them, circles. "We asked ourselves: 'Could this be some sort of sketch of a route of a military system? A tunnel system?' We connected the eyewitness reports of the digging work – the fortification work that could not be seen overground – and the map," said Beeri.

"According to the indications, Hezbollah carried out fortification work in those geographical areas using large quantities of construction materials, while the work was carried out by a Korean company under the supervision of an Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps officer," according to the report.

The report named the North Korean company as the Korea Mining Development Trading Corporation (KOMID), while the actual construction was conducted by Hezbollah's Jihad Construction Foundation.

The Jihad Construction Foundation reportedly received assistance from companies that acted as civilian cover for the construction of the long tunnels. One of the suspected companies, said Beeri, is the "Beqaa for Construction and Contracting" company, which was set up in 2005 under the auspices of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, and until 2013, headed Maj. Gen. Hassan Shateri, a senior IRGC officer who was mysteriously killed in Syria in 2013.

It is highly likely that Shateri was responsible for carrying out Hezbollah's tunneling project in Lebanon," said the report.

It sketched out the route of one tunnel, stretching 45 kilometers south of Beirut, east of Sidon, in an area of Southern Lebanon that Hezbollah describes as its "second line of defense" against a potential Israeli ground maneuver.

Ultimately, said Beeri, the tunnels enable the secretive movement of Hezbollah's forces and weapons.

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

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