Made in Iran: Israel displays captured Hezbollah weapons
Israel displayed Iranian-made weapons seized from southern Lebanon on Wednesday.
Iranian-made weapons captured from Hezbollah and displayed by the Israel Defence Forces on Oct. 9, 2024. Photo by TPS-IL
“The weapons you see here have been stored in Hezbollah bunkers on the front line for more than a year. We know about it, we saw it and now we take it and make sure Hezbollah won’t be able to use those arms,” a soldier at the Julis army base explained.
Pointing to a weapons barrel, the soldier said it was found pointed at an army outpost. “The rest of the weaponry was for breaking the fence. Really just a few hundred meters from the fence, posing a real threat, and we erased this threat.”
“Here’s an Iranian-made launcher known as Tosan,” an anti-tank missile with a range of four km. “Here are its rockets found in a village controlled by Hezbollah.
Iranian-made anti-personnel mines “found in big quantities” inside Lebanon and ready to use. Many of the mines were found in bags with an indicator of humidity. “Everything was ready at a very very high level.”
Other weapons seized included anti-tank mines, rifles, rocket-propelled grenades, and fake rocks with explosives hidden inside.
Sarit Zahavi, president and founder of the Alma Research Center, told The Press Service of Israel in August that Hezbollah doctrine makes extensive use of civilian homes, where many more weapons, including ballistic missiles, are kept.
“Hezbollah stores their weapons everywhere, both between villages and within the villages themselves,” she said.
“By and large, every third house in the Shi’ite villages of south Lebanon is used in some way by Hezbollah for military purposes, be it weapons storage, the entrance of a tunnel, or a launchpad for shooting rockets at Israel,” she explained.
Also on Wednesday, two Israelis were killed in Kiryat Shmona during a Hezbollah rocket barrage. The victims were identified as Dvir Sharvit, 43, and his partner, Revital Yehud, 45. The two were walking their dogs when the warning sirens went off. They and the dogs were killed by falling shrapnel.
After the Hamas attacks of October 7, 2023, the Iran-backed Hezbollah began firing rockets and launching drones at northern Israel communities, killing 51 people. According to figures released by the government on Sept. 29, more than 68,000 residents of northern Israel are displaced from their homes. Hezbollah leaders have repeatedly said they would continue the attacks to prevent Israelis from returning to their homes.
Israel’s war goals include securely returning northern residents to their homes.
Israeli officials demand Hezbollah to be disarmed and removed from southern Lebanon in compliance with UN Security Council resolution 1701 which ended the Second Lebanon War of 2006. This includes all areas south of the Litani River such as the cities of Nabatieh and Tyre, as well as the Beqaa Valley in eastern Lebanon.
