The Israeli military has demolished an extensive Hezbollah underground command complex beneath the Ali al-Taher ridge in southern Lebanon, about 15 kilometres from the Israeli border, in a controlled demolition powerful enough to register as a 4.1-magnitude earthquake on US Geological Survey instruments. The blast sent tremors and a thunderous rumble across Nabatieh and the surrounding region, with residents in nearby towns describing the ground shaking beneath them.

In a joint statement, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Israel Katz declared that the operation "completes the achievement of operational control over the Ali al-Taher ridge — above and below ground," describing the infrastructure as "strategic terrorist infrastructure built over two decades, with Iranian funding and planning." The Israeli military said the tunnel network stretched for more than two kilometres and contained dozens of Iranian-made rockets, missiles, and drones, as well as anti-tank missiles, hundreds of mines, and explosive devices. At its centre was a command complex belonging to Hezbollah's Badr unit, with command centres, weapons storage rooms, and living quarters designed to allow fighters to remain underground for extended periods. Some militants who had operated in the area had abandoned it, while others were killed in aerial strikes and artillery fire, according to military officials.

The Ali al-Taher ridge has become one of the most contested flashpoints of the continuing conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, the Iran-aligned Lebanese militant group. Israel announced last week that it had captured the ridge, and Lebanese security sources previously told Reuters that Hezbollah had built an underground command centre and weapons stores there. Despite a ceasefire agreed in June, Israeli strikes and ground operations in the area have continued and recently intensified. A US-brokered framework called for Israeli forces to gradually withdraw from southern Lebanon while Lebanese troops disarm Hezbollah — but the process has stalled, with Hezbollah refusing to relinquish its weapons and Israel insisting it will not withdraw until it does. Iran had reportedly warned Washington last month that continued Israeli attacks on the ridge would draw a forceful response.

Adding to the controversy surrounding Israeli operations in Lebanon, a joint report published this week by Human Rights Watch and Harvard Law School's International Human Rights Clinic documented 23 verified incidents of Israel using white phosphorus munitions in southern Lebanon between March and May of this year. The report, spanning 45 pages, argues that the weapons — which ignite on contact with oxygen and can reignite when fragments embedded in the body are re-exposed to air — were fired over populated areas, making it impossible to distinguish between combatants and civilians, in direct violation of international humanitarian law. Lebanon's National Scientific Research Council has estimated that white phosphorus burned 175 hectares of agricultural land. The two organisations are calling on states to address the issue at the UN General Assembly's annual disarmament meeting in October.

The broader picture extends beyond Lebanon. Netanyahu this week visited Israeli forces at Mount Hermon — a strategically dominant peak straddling the Syrian-Lebanese border, known in Arabic as Jabal al-Sheikh, which rises to 2,814 metres and overlooks vast swathes of Syria, Lebanon, and northern Israel. Israel has occupied positions on and around the mountain since Syrian president Bashar al-Assad's government fell, and has conducted hundreds of strikes on Syrian military sites. Syria's foreign ministry condemned Netanyahu's visit as "illegal" and a violation of Syrian sovereignty. The Israeli military presence across these multiple fronts reflects what Israeli officials describe as the creation of a security buffer zone — a rationale that Lebanon, Syria, and international rights groups increasingly contest.