Of all of the battle spaces of the last three years, from Gaza to Syria to the West Bank to Lebanon, the Ali Taher Ridge battle was the most complex to win, Egoz special forces Commander Lt.-Col. “M” told The Jerusalem Post in a rare on-the-record interview on Wednesday.
The operation to capture the ridge at the edge of the IDF’s zone in southern Lebanon lasted months, as dozens of terrorists, estimated to number around 50, were entrenched inside the tunnel until the IDF took control on September 3.
M viewed the defeat of Hezbollah at Ali Taher by his forces and IDF Division 36 more generally as a major setback to the terrorist group and to Iran “both on a symbolic and command-and-control operational level.”
The destruction of the 14 tunnel routes on the ridge – stretching about 5.4 k.m. in total and built with Iranian help over 20 years – by using a staggering 1,100 pounds of explosives, was given the IDF codename “Chisel of Flames.”
The challenges were multifaceted, M told the Post.
How did an elite IDF unit win the battle of Ali Taher Ridge?
Firstly, the ascent of the 600-meter-high ridge was extremely difficult and contained very few paths, he said. This made it easier for Hezbollah to booby-trap access routes to its underground lair.
Next, the volume of explosive drones that were sent to attack the Egoz special forces was unprecedented, M said.
“The ridge and lair were totally Iranian, with Hezbollah forces, one of the largest underground complexes in Lebanon,” with command-and-control authority over the entire Nabatiya area, he said.
“From the Ali Taher Ridge command center, Hezbollah managed all of its long- and short-range firepower southern Lebanon attacks on the IDF as well as on Israeli civilians in northern Israel,” he added. “Hezbollah felt very safe here and thought they were immune” to assault.
But M said his Egoz commandos “went in hard and fast, initially with small groups of forces to surround and cut off the area. Then we sent small probing forces into the very complex underground headquarters from which there were dozens of terrorists, rockets, and drone threats regularly.”
Next, to avoid the myriad booby-traps that Hezbollah set for them, his special forces had to use a variety of advanced technologies and super-honed field skills, such as being able to practically see and smell traps and drones moments before they would strike, M said.
It helped that the Egoz special forces had achieved complete surprise against the Hezbollah forces at Ali Taher by using various tactics to distract them from the commandos’ approach until it was too late, he said.
This meant that when the Hezbollah operatives started using more drones and firepower, they did not know where to direct their fire, he added.
Commandos saw 'fear and surprise in the enemy's eyes'
In many instances, the gunfights were in such proximity that his commandos “saw the fear and surprise in the enemy’s eyes up close,” M said.
Despite the surprise, he credited the Hezbollah fighters in the complex with “fighting back more fiercely than in any other battle in Lebanon," they knew how important the battle was.”
Capt. “D” of the Combat Engineering Corps’ Yahalom special unit told the Post the areas near Hezbollah’s lair and inside were covered in surveillance cameras and a variety of short- and long-range improvised explosives so that anyone entering might think they were safe after getting past one explosive, only to fall victim to the next one.
He said his Yahalom special forces had used a wide range of techniques to analyze all the different pieces of the Ali Taher Ridge tunnel network until they could break it down into exactly which sections they wanted to take over and which sections they could just blow up with dynamite and cut off.
To accomplish this, they brought in senior experts from all over the IDF to arrive at the best and most creative plan, he added.
There were literally dozens of times during the battle for Ali Taher when he could have been killed if something had gone slightly differently, D said.
For example, when he was centimeters away from stepping on a well-camouflaged mine, he had a sixth-sense feeling that something was suspicious about the topography and stepped back from what would have been a fatal move forward, he said.
In another incident, a drone struck the vehicle he had been traveling in only moments after he exited, destroying the vehicle but leaving him unharmed, he added.
Both M and D said the large boulders that were part of the topography were a special challenge, but Egoz and Yahalom rose to the challenge to clear the way for additional forces and for blowing up the entire complex.
Furthermore, both M and D talked about Iran’s heavy contributions to the technological and tactical construction of the complex, making it unique in southern Lebanon.
D described a creative process for rapidly moving explosives from nearby trucks deep into the Hezbollah headquarters – both for efficiency and so that the terrorists could not intervene.
Questioned about the difficulties of the Israeli security cabinet and the Trump administration at one point ordering a pause from operations against Hezbollah at Ali Taher so as not to undermine the broader ceasefire with Iran, M said the IDF and political echelon had been fully coordinated at all times.
“Wherever and whenever an area was defined as a battle space, we did everything to arrive at the desired outcome,” he said.
Until the IDF destroyed the complex, it had served as the “nerve center” for the Badr Unit, and Hezbollah had no infrastructure of a similar scale north of it until reaching Beirut’s Dahiyeh neighborhood.
The operation began with the crossing of the Litani River and an attempt to surprise Hezbollah, the IDF reported.
The IDF carried out deception operations designed to make Hezbollah believe soldiers were preparing to cross in another area, but at the same time, it was opening a hidden bypass route over several days.
While most Hezbollah fighters were killed, some did manage to escape given the large number of tunnel shafts connected to the network.
Aspects of the operation were also conducted gradually, so there was no dramatic single moment until it was too late to lure Iran into complacency when Hezbollah started to desperately call for help.
“After what we did to them here, they understand we can get to them anywhere,” M said.