“Most of these weapons are stored in some 100 villages around southern Lebanon.”

An update on this story, which also detailed Hizballah’s deliberate placement of weapons and military assets near “hospitals, private homes, and schools.” “IDF identifies thousands of Hezbollah sites in Lebanon,” by Yaakov Katz for the Jerusalem Post, June 10:

The IDF has identified thousands of Hezbollah sites throughout Lebanon, making its “target bank” many times larger than it was in 2006 on the eve of the Second Lebanon War, a senior IDF officer told The Jerusalem Post ahead of the fifth anniversary of the start of the conflict.

According to the officer, the IDF had approximately 200 pre-designated targets on July 12, 2006, when Hezbollah set off the war by abducting reservists Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser. Those targets included close to 100 homes and other storage sites where the Islamist group had deployed long-range missiles it received from Iran. The targets were destroyed on the first night of the war.

Today the bank has thousands more sites throughout Lebanon that would constitute legitimate targets in the event of a future war with Hezbollah, the officer told the Post. Earlier this year, the IDF released a map showing 950 locations scattered across the country – a majority of them bunkers and surveillance sites.

According to the officer, Hezbollah is also believed to have passed the 50,000 mark in the number of rockets and missiles it has obtained. Most of these weapons are stored in some 100 villages around southern Lebanon. […]

UNIFIL’s mandate will be up for extension in August, and the IDF is hoping that by raising awareness of Hezbollah’s growing presence in these villages it might succeed in getting the UN to enforce a tougher mandate.

Currently, peacekeeping troops who want to enter villages need to coordinate their moves with the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF), which in many cases warns Hezbollah.

“UNIFIL is doing an effective job in open areas, and for that reason we don’t really see Hezbollah positions there,” the officer said. “Instead, Hezbollah is based inside villages, since UNIFIL cannot go there freely.”…