Israel says it has found all 'Hezbollah cross-border tunnels' from Lebanon

Hezbollah and Israel last fought a war in 2006. While they have at times traded blows within Syria - where Hezbollah has been helping Damascus beat back rebels - the Israel-Lebanon border has mostly been quiet, Reuters reported.

Last year, Hezbollah's leader said any future conflict with Israel could take place inside Israeli territory, and there would be "no place that is out of reach of the rockets of the resistance or the boots of the resistance fighters".

Israel’s vulnerability to tunnels was laid bare during its war with the Palestinian group Hamas in Gaza in 2014 when Palestinian fighters used dozens of secret passages dug from Gaza into Israel to launch surprise attacks.

An Israeli military spokesman declined to say how many tunnels had been discovered in total, but the army has announced six since the operation was launched. The last tunnel was exposed on Saturday, the army said.

"We have found yet another Hezbollah cross-border attack tunnel from Lebanon to Israel," said Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Conricus.

"According to our intelligence and our assessment of the situation, there are no longer any cross-border attack tunnels from Lebanon into Israel."

Hezbollah has not commented on the tunnels, the existence of which have been confirmed by UNIFIL peacekeepers.

The latest tunnel began in the Lebanese village of Ramyeh, 800 metres away from Israel, the army said.

It reached a few dozen metres into Israel, and at 55 metres underground was the deepest as well as "the longest and most detailed" of all the tunnels the army exposed, Conricus said.

The army said its discovery marked the end of the operation launched on 4 December and that the last tunnel would be destroyed in the coming days.

On a visit to an area near the Israeli border with Lebanon on Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hailed the success of the operation dubbed "Northern Shield".

"A very serious threat was averted here," said Netanyahu.

"Hezbollah's operational plan was to use the tunnels weapon to infiltrate many fighters, between 1,000-2,000 terrorists, into the Galilee to seize communities here... We have prevented this - and will continue to prevent it," he said.

The tunnels are being destroyed either with explosives or by filling them with a cement-like material to make them unusable.

Conricus said there were no more tunnels reaching Israel from Lebanon but the army was still monitoring "facilities" being dug by Hezbollah inside Lebanese territory.

He also reiterated that Israel holds the Lebanese government accountable "for any act of violence or violation of 1701", the UN resolution that ended the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah.

UNIFIL, the UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon, was informed of the latest tunnel, Conricus said.

Israel alleges Hezbollah had planned to use the tunnels to kidnap or kill its civilians or soldiers, and to seize a slice of Israeli territory in the event of any hostilities.

It has said, however, that they were not yet operational.

A month-long war in 2006 between Israel and Hezbollah killed more than 1,200 Lebanese, mostly civilians, and more than 160 Israelis, mostly soldiers.

Israel says all anti-tunnel operations have taken place within its territory, and the highly publicised mission has gone ahead without drawing a military response from Hezbollah.

The announcement that the operation is ending comes as military chief of staff Gadi Eisenkot steps down at the end of his term.

Israeli analysts see the operation as one of Eisenkot's important achievements.

Neither Lebanon nor Hezbollah has commented directly on the end of the operation.