Israeli forces have been conducting major operations in recent days in the Tabnit area of southern Lebanon against a Hezbollah underground network stretching more than a kilometer. The fighting has taken place both above and below ground, and dozens of Hezbollah militants are now encircled inside the compound.
The center of the operation is Tal Ali al-Taher, a strategic ridge between Tabnit and Nabatieh al-Fawqa, north of the Litani River. Rising to about 700 meters, it provides dominant surveillance and control over Nabatieh and large parts of southern Lebanon. Its location also gives it command over key routes linking the coast and the country’s center, as well as the Nabatieh, Bekaa, Tyre and Marjayoun areas.
According to Arab media reports, the site contains an actual underground city that serves as Hezbollah’s main headquarters for the Badr Unit and as the organization’s central operations room in southern Lebanon. The Badr Unit is one of the regional formations responsible for the area from north of the Litani to Sidon, and it coordinates rockets, UAVs, drones and ambushes. The article says the base allows Hezbollah to manage these activities from inside the ridge.
The piece places the site within the wider Hezbollah-Iranian “axis of resistance,” saying that since the 2006 Second Lebanon War, Iran’s Quds Force has invested heavily in underground infrastructure, including tunnels, command rooms, storage sites and concealed launch systems. It says the goal is to maintain command and weapons capability under Israeli air attack, and that Hezbollah builds the network through local engineering units and Jihad al-Binaa. The article also says Hezbollah publicly revealed part of its tunnel network in a propaganda video a month before Hassan Nasrallah was killed, likely exposing the Tal Ali al-Taher site for the first time. It adds that Israel is trying to expand a forward defense zone in southern Lebanon, but a U.S. veto stopped the fighting, and the future of the underground compound remains unclear.
