The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) on Tuesday destroyed a major Hezbollah tunnel in southern Lebanon on Tuesday evening, minutes after issuing an unusual warning that the blast would be heard across wide areas.
The tunnel is being described in regional media as the largest one ever discovered thus far in the war in southern Lebanon. Israeli N12 News reporter Amit Segal has written that "the force of the explosion caused a small earthquake to be felt along the northern border." The below footage has been confirmed in Israeli media:
Very shortly before the huge blast, an alert went out to Israeli communities from Rosh Hanikra to the Golan Heights, forewarning of the large explosion - telling people not to panic.
The tunnel was located near the village of Qantara, which is a heavily Shiite Muslim town. The Israeli ground operation has seen Muslim and Christian villages alike razed to the ground in some instances.
Amid the fragile Iran and Lebanon ceasefires, sirens sounded in the Galilee area just minutes before the planned detonation, reportedly also based on potential inbound aerial threats.
Amazingly, the Times of Israel reports in the explosion aftermath that the "Geological Survey of Israel says the massive controlled explosion was picked up by the seismic warning system. However, no earthquake sirens were activated."
"The military told residents earlier it would ensure that the controlled blast would not set off the earthquake sirens, which has happened in the past," the report adds.
The blast was filmed and photographed even from miles away, where smoke was seen reaching many stories into the air.
Lebanon has been denouncing such controlled demolition activity, given that in some cases entire villages and abandoned towns have been destroyed in similar fashion.
Israel has sought to utterly raze any village it deems a Hezbollah weapons depot or safe area. But this has also included targeting Christian towns in the south of Lebanon, as the below image shows.
Western media has tended to present these Mideast conflicts involving Israel as coming down to "Jewish vs. Muslim" wars - but the Israeli army doesn't discriminate in terms of also attacking Lebanese and Palestinian Christian enclaves.