According to the newspaper, Israeli forces carried out major explosions around Beaufort Castle, as well as in Deir Mimas and Kfar Tebnit. Israeli units also began infiltrating toward the vicinity of Ali al-Taher, while remotely controlled vehicles were sent in to conduct reconnaissance and identify entrances and fortifications. At a later stage, Israel pushed these vehicles closer toward the hill itself, and Hezbollah targeted one of them. The Israelis were attempting to map what lay underground before entering it.
Al-Modon added:
Meanwhile, Hezbollah continued to hold onto the site. On the final day of the war, before the ceasefire came into effect, Israel attempted to advance toward the facility under intense fire cover. Hezbollah fought fiercely that day and launched hundreds of rockets and drones in an effort to prevent Israeli forces from reaching it. Ali al-Taher did not fall that day.
However, after the ceasefire, and as U.S. pressure began to focus on preventing a broader escalation, Israel changed its approach. Instead of trying to storm the facility all at once, it shifted to a strategy of gradual encroachment: tightening the area around it, cutting supply routes, surveying entrances, advancing toward one entrance and then moving on to the next.
At the same time, attempts were underway to find a settlement that would avoid a final military outcome.
Efforts to reach a deal or some form of arrangement were taking place in parallel with continued Israeli military operations, rather than replacing them. One proposal that was discussed called for Hezbollah to withdraw from Ali al-Taher and hand the site over to the Lebanese Army. However, according to available information, the army demanded clear guarantees that Israel would not enter the facility after it had taken control of it. Israel did not provide such guarantees.
The proposal failed. Sources following the official Lebanese position say they have no indications that any secret deal was reached afterward. On the contrary, they stress that all proposals put forward ultimately reached a dead end.
At one stage, Hezbollah proposed allowing the Lebanese Army to enter the facility while Hezbollah fighters remained inside, an arrangement rejected by Lebanon as well as Israel.
The Israeli side, meanwhile, insisted that its own forces enter Ali al-Taher and destroy the facility and everything inside it. Israel’s assessment was that the Lebanese Army, from the Israeli point of view, lacked either the intention or the capability to destroy Hezbollah’s weapons stored there and demolish the underground military infrastructure.
Thus, while contacts continued in search of a way out, the military encirclement kept tightening.
After the reconnaissance phase and the use of remotely controlled vehicles, Israeli forces moved to a more advanced stage. Military units advanced from the southeast, from Kfar Tebnit, toward a bypass road overlooking the Khardali and Jarmaq areas.
Through this flanking movement, Israeli forces were able to move closer to the heart of the facility and reach the entrances of two tunnels. However, even before the encirclement of Ali al-Taher was completed, Israeli forces had already attempted to penetrate its underground network.
According to the information, Israeli commando units carried out two operations inside the tunnel network before the full entry into the facility.
During the first operation, an Israeli force entered a tunnel from the Kfar Tebnit side and clashed inside it with a Hezbollah group. Several Hezbollah fighters were killed in the confrontation, and Israeli forces managed to seize the bodies of a number of them and take them away.
The second operation took place through another entrance on the eastern side overlooking Jarmaq. An Israeli commando force entered and another clash erupted.
During the fighting, two Iranian military advisers who were present in the area were wounded. Hezbollah, however, managed to evacuate them.
This incident takes on particular significance in reconstructing what happened later. Following it, the information suggests that the evacuation of the Iranians and a large number of Hezbollah fighters from the area accelerated.
According to security estimates, at one stage of the battle there were around 40 personnel inside the Ali al-Taher facility, most of them Lebanese, in addition to a limited number of Iranians.
Around 15 fighters were killed during the confrontations, while the others managed to leave in stages.
The Israelis had not discovered every entrance to the network. While they were advancing from one direction and closing off a passageway or entrance, Hezbollah was still able to use other entrances and exits.
At times, Hezbollah was forced to launch drones toward Israeli forces to distract them and create a window through which some of its fighters could escape.
At an early stage, some Hezbollah fighters managed to exit toward Kfar Roummaneh. After Israeli forces discovered that this area was being used as an escape route, Kfar Roummaneh and Doha Kfar Roummaneh came under intense airstrikes.
Others later exited through different routes.
But leaving Ali al-Taher did not necessarily mean survival. Israel later targeted a number of those who had left the area in assassination operations in Ansar, Deir al-Zahrani and Kfar Roummaneh.
As for the Iranian Revolutionary Guard personnel who had been inside the facility, they were also able to leave.
According to the information, they did not exit through entrances that had fallen under Israeli control, but rather through other access points that remained in Hezbollah’s hands and had not yet been discovered by the Israelis.
Those who support the theory that there was a deal base their argument on a simple question: if Israel had gradually completed its siege of Ali al-Taher, how were the Iranians and a number of Hezbollah fighters able to escape?
There is no conclusive information proving that the answer was a “deal.” However, proponents of this theory link what happened on the ground to a political process that was moving in parallel with the battle.
At the time, Iranian-American negotiation channels had begun to move. At the same time, there was growing talk of indirect negotiations between the Americans and Hezbollah.
U.S. envoy Tom Barrack had spoken about the impossibility of reaching a settlement over Hezbollah’s weapons without Iran and Hezbollah being at the table.
According to those who support this interpretation, Turkey played a key role in indirect contacts and in relaying messages between Hezbollah and the Americans.
On the other hand, there is a completely different account.
Sources close to Hezbollah rule out the possibility of such a deal and argue that the logic of events itself contradicts it.
These sources say that Hezbollah and Iran could not, particularly at this time, accept an arrangement that would produce an outcome granting Benjamin Netanyahu a military and political victory of such magnitude: taking control of one of Hezbollah’s most prominent facilities linked to Iranian support, entering it, then blowing it up and declaring it destroyed, all while Israel is approaching electoral milestones.
The sources question whether Hezbollah or Iran would give Netanyahu such a scene and hand him an achievement he could present to the Israeli public.
They also point to what occurred during previous negotiation attempts.
According to this account, Hezbollah had never accepted a formula under which it would withdraw from a military site and hand it over to Israel. Even the proposal under which the site would have been handed to the Lebanese Army failed to produce an agreement.
The sources add that the issue was not merely a political position taken by the leadership.
Even as the options for escape narrowed, some fighters refused to leave the site and decided to remain and fight until the end.
According to these sources, what happened was not a deal, but rather a gradual military withdrawal from a facility under continuous siege. Those who were able to leave through passageways that remained open did so, while others stayed behind and fought.
As the gradual encroachment continued, the Israeli operation reached its fourth and final stage.
Forces advanced into Ali al-Taher while airstrikes and demolition operations targeted buildings surrounding the area.
Israeli forces tightened the encirclement of the hill from all sides before beginning work inside the tunnels they had managed to locate.
At that point, the objective was no longer merely to seize the facility, but to destroy it.
Israeli forces detonated a section of the tunnels extending for around two kilometers.
These tunnels were not a straight underground line, but rather a network filled with bends and branches, which amplified the force of the explosions and the destruction inflicted on the facility.
Thus, a battle that had lasted for weeks ended with an explosion that took only seconds to erase a large part of what had taken years to build underground.
Despite Israeli leaks speaking of an intention to withdraw from the area, the facts and available field information do not indicate, according to the report, that Israel is preparing to leave anytime soon.
On the contrary, the available information indicates that Israel is working to establish positions in the area while preparing for a new operation.
Further demolition operations are expected in some of the passageways and tunnels connected to Ali al-Taher, in addition to al-Dabsha Hill and al-Tahra Hill.
According to the information, Israel intends to advance toward al-Sweida Hill, which belongs to Arab Salim, as well as toward al-Burj Hill.
Both hills form a geographical extension of Ali al-Taher, but they also carry additional importance because they overlook the Iqlim al-Tuffah region.
Israeli forces are also expected to continue their operations in Nabatieh al-Fawqa and maintain pressure toward Jabal al-Rafi‘ through airstrikes.