Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu delivered his annual speech at the UN General Assembly at the end of September, during which he unveiled the discovery of a weapons depot which also serves as a Hezbollah missile plant located in the heart of Beirut.
He called on Lebanese residents to demand that the terrorist organization cease its activities in the neighborhood. The exposure of weapons and ammunition depots in residential areas, as well as various headquarters and infrastructure of terrorist organizations is not shocking news and can only be considered a situational surprise for those who are unfamiliar with, or not closely following Hezbollah's assessments of the conflict with Israel.
It is known that Hezbollah has made and still makes extensive use of civilian areas for its military needs, as was revealed by IDF fighters during the Second Lebanon War in 2006.
The hiding of missiles and rockets in private homes, along with a variety of weapons, explosives and means of intelligence gathering, was in fact routine. The September 22nd explosion in the village of Qana in southern Lebanon, was a reminder of the real price that civilians pay for this practice.
Similar incidents continued to take place, such as a series of explosions in the Baalbek area (in Eastern Lebanon) in October 2012, and accidental ammunition blasts in Southern Lebanese villages such as Shahabania in September 2010 and in Hirbat Slem in July 2009, where chemical warfare components exploded.
The use of agricultural facilities in Lebanese rural areas has also become a cover for Hezbollah activities, such as the case of an explosion which was reported to have taken place on a poultry farm which was actually an ammunition depot, in the town of Tir Harfa, in December 2012. In addition, Hezbollah uses civilian hospitals, sports facilities, airports and seaports for storage purposes, as evidenced by the catastrophic explosion at the Beirut port warehouses on August 4th this year.
Prime Minister Netanyahu’s revelation in the U.N assembly was not the first to be published regarding this specific issue. READ MORE
