A 1982 suicide bombing in south Lebanon which killed dozens of Israeli soldiers was carried out by Hezbollah and not a gas leak as previously claimed by Israel, an Israeli probe has revealed.
The explosion happened on 11 November in the port city of Tyre, targeting a headquarters for the Israeli military. It killed 76 Israeli soldiers and 15 Lebanese detainees and levelled the building.
It was Hezbollah’s first operation since their inception that same year.
Tel Aviv has long insisted the explosion was a result of gas cylinders blowing up.
The operation was "carried out by Hezbollah and not from a gas explosion as the Israeli services have claimed until today", concluded the Special Military Investigation Committee in Israel, formed about a year ago.
The committee findings were reported by Israel’s Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper.
Yedioth Ahronoth said the committee will present its findings to the heads of Israeli intelligence services, the government, and to the families of soldiers who died once it finalises its report.
The investigation said Israel’s claim that the bombing was a gas explosion was an excuse to cover up the country’s failure in facing the newly born Hezbollah group.
According to Yedioth Ahronoth, the committee did not only probe the bombing itself, but also the attempts to cover it up by Israel. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly wrote to the families of the dead soldiers in 2021 to reiterate that the explosion was indeed the result of an accidental gas leak, denying that this claim was a lie.
But the investigation has shown otherwise.
The Shia Hezbollah movement was founded in 1982 with the help of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a guerrilla force, the same year Israel carried out a full invasion of Lebanon, reaching Beirut.
Since then, Hezbollah has grown to become one of the most prominent paramilitary forces in the world, with an arsenal on par with that of national armies. It refuses to give up its arms as long as Israel, it says, continues to constitute a threat.
Israel and Hezbollah have fought several wars and are currently engaged in fierce cross-border clashes which have resulted in hundreds of casualties, devastated towns and villages, and displaced tens of thousands of people on both sides of the border.
The fighting is happening in parallel with Israel’s war on Gaza, and Hezbollah has refused to halt attacks before a ceasefire is reached in the Gaza Strip.
There is growing regional and international concern that the fighting could escalate into a full-blown regional conflict.