The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) 810th Alpine (or Mountain) Brigade announced Saturday that it had found weaponry manufactured by Iran on the slopes of Har (Mount) Dov, one of two strategic mountains on the border near Israel.
Breitbart News visited the Alpine Brigade on Thursday and toured the Har Dov area, before the discovery of Iranian weaponry was announced. The newly-formed brigade was deemed necessary because of the potential for infiltration into Israel through the unfenced mountain slopes of Har Dov and Mount Hermon, the highest peak in the region.
As Breitbart News reported on location on Thursday:
Har Dov is near the Shebaa Farms, an area that Hezbollah, the Iran-backed terror organization, claims for Lebanon, but which Israel seized from Syria during the Six Day War in 1967. The United Nations, normally hostile to Israel, actually agrees with Israel that Lebanon has no legal claim to the farms or Har Dov.
In recent years, Hezbollah has attempted to encroach on the area. It has also used the Har Dov issue in its effort to persuade Lebanon’s people of the need for war against Israel, rather than admitting that the Iranian regime has been using war for its own narrow interests.
Rather than dismiss Hezbollah’s claims, the Biden-Harris administration took them at face value, and attempted to persuade Israel to withdraw its forces from the Har Dov area as a condition of the ceasefire deal it wanted to impose after Hezbollah had fired missiles, rockets, and drones at Israel for nearly a year, starting in October 2023.
But Israel could not accept such a deal, primarily because Har Dov has a commanding view of almost all of the upper Galilee, making it a key strategic location.
The IDF issued the following statement Saturday:
For the past two months, troops of the 810th Brigade and the Alpinist Unit continued to conduct targeted, intelligence-based raids in the thicketed terrain of Mount Dov. During these activities, the soldiers located and dismantled numerous Hezbollah weapons and terrorist infrastructure.
Over the past week, the soldiers located a Hezbollah launch site containing accommodation facilities and hideouts. In the compound, the troops located and confiscated an Iranian-manufactured cannon, rocket launchers, and rockets aimed toward Israel.
The IDF released photos of a cannon with Iranian markings, plus a rocket launching battery aimed into Israel.
Iran supplies Hezbollah, along with Russia. Iran also provides funding for the terrorist group’s ongoing operations.
Control of Har Dov is now firmly in Israel’s hands; it is no longer a topic within ceasefire negotiations with Hezbollah.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of The Agenda: What Trump Should Do in His First 100 Days, available for pre-order on Amazon. He is also the author of The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency, now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.