JERUSALEM / BEIRUT — September 11, 2026. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Israel Katz said Israeli forces destroyed Hezbollah underground infrastructure under the Ali al-Taher ridge in southern Lebanon, claiming the blast completed consolidation of a self-declared security zone roughly fifteen kilometers from the Israeli border. The Israeli military described more than two kilometers of tunnels, dozens of rockets, missiles and drones, anti-tank weapons and mines, and a Badr-unit command complex with living quarters designed for prolonged underground stays. Lebanon’s National News Agency reported tremors and a powerful blast felt across Nabatieh and surrounding areas after the Thursday night demolition.Israeli officers said the 36th Division had achieved operational control” above and below ground before the destruction, and that forces would remain to stop Hezbollah from rebuilding. Netanyahu and Katz called the ridge “strategic terrorist infrastructure” built over two decades with Iranian funding and planning, alleging it was meant as a staging base toward the Galilee with observation and fire dominance over Metula and Kiryat Shmona. Those claims land against a U.S.-brokered June 26 framework that envisioned gradual Israeli withdrawal as the Lebanese army asserted control and Hezbollah disarmed—a process Lebanese officials say Israel’s continued strikes and demolitions have hollowed out. The Lebanese army has counted thousands of Israeli violations since the framework, according to regional reporting.
Diplomatically, Washington still describes “constructive dialogue” and points to a next Rome round, while Lebanese political voices argue the framework has effectively collapsed under ongoing operations. Ali al-Taher’s demolition is therefore both a tactical end-state for Israel’s buffer narrative and a political rupture for the U.S. track: each ton of explosives that “completes” the zone also hardens Lebanese skepticism that withdrawal timelines are real. With Iran’s wider war still burning in Hormuz and Yemen, Hezbollah’s underground loss is one more Iranian-aligned capability bill coming due—paid, for now, in southern Lebanon’s ridgelines rather than in a diplomatic text.s rather than in a diplomatic text.
