IDF demolishes Hezbollah tunnels below southern Lebanon’s Beaufort Ridge

The Times of Israel is liveblogging Friday’s events as they unfold.

Video from Jerusalem shows dozens of ultra-Orthodox males accosting several off-duty soldiers walking through the capital.

The Haredi demonstrators can be seen following after the soldiers, who Hebrew media outlets identify as members of the predominately ultra-Orthodox Netzah Yehuda battalion, as they yell and throw objects at them.

שלושה חיילים חרדים המשרתים בגדוד “נצח יהודה” נקלעו לאזור שבו התקיימה קבלת הפנים ל”פורעי סולברג”, והותקפו על ידי ההמון במקום.

המפגינים השליכו לעבר החיילים בקבוקים ורדפו אחריהם, השלושה הצליחו להימלט מהמקום ללא פגע. pic.twitter.com/IThA3urExZ

— יעקב הרשקוביץ | Yaakov hershkowitz (@yaakov_hershko) July 30, 2026

Footage also shows the protesters throwing objects at Border Police officers dispatched to the scene, while calling them “Nazis.”

כוחות משטרה שהגיעו למקום הותקפו גם הם השוטרים מסתלקים מהאזור pic.twitter.com/kRXn7fKku2

— יעקב הרשקוביץ | Yaakov hershkowitz (@yaakov_hershko) July 30, 2026

There are no immediate reports of injuries or arrests.

The Ynet news site reports that the group of Haredim were attending a rally in support of those arrested for taking part in an attack on the home of Deputy Supreme Court Chief Justice Noam Sohlberg to protest the arrest of ultra-Orthodox draft dodgers.

The Israeli military has blown up Hezbollah’s tunnel system beneath the Beaufort Ridge in southern Lebanon, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz announce in a joint statement.

They say that the IDF used 700 tons of explosives to demolish the subterranean facility.

The demolition was planned for an earlier date but was postponed because of the ceasefire. Netanyahu and Katz say the destruction of the tunnel system at this time comes in response to Hezbollah’s “blatant” violation of the ceasefire agreement yesterday, by targeting an unmanned bulldozer with an explosive drone.

The tunnel, which journalists toured earlier this month, served as a “central part of the Hezbollah terror organization’s invasion plan against the Galilee communities,” the statement says.

“The State of Israel will not accept any violation of the ceasefire agreement. Any attempt by Hezbollah to harm IDF troops or Israeli civilians will be met with a severe and powerful response that will exact a heavy price from the terrorist organization,”. Netanyahu and Katz say, adding that the IDF “will remain in the security zone in southern Lebanon and will continue to destroy all terror infrastructure in order to prevent any attempt by Hezbollah to restore its capabilities.”

The IDF in its own statement says it demolished “several key underground routes in the Beaufort Ridge area.”

“Over the past several weeks, IDF troops completed securing the Beaufort Ridge area, while taking control of and clearing the underground infrastructure and preparing it for destruction,” the military says.

The military had already on July 13 demolished a tunnel that was part of the Beaufort Ridge area underground system. With the latest demolition, most of the tunnel network in the area has been destroyed.

The IDF is also still monitoring a major Hezbollah tunnel system beneath the Ali Taher ridge, where dozens of operatives are still believed to be holed up.

Former hostage Evyatar David, who was filmed pale and emaciated in a video where he said he was digging his own grave in a Hamas tunnel in Gaza, recounts the experience one year after the video was filmed.

The footage, released in early August last year and filmed a few days prior, sparked outcry and became one of the most harrowing images of the plight of the hostages kidnapped by Hamas in the terror group’s October 7, 2023, attack.

In the video, a skeletal David described how he had not eaten for a few days, held a shovel and dug a pit in a tunnel.

“This is the grave I think I’m going to be buried in,” he said in the video. “Time is running out. You are the only ones who can end this.”

Speaking to Channel 12’s Uvda program today, David recalls smelling food being eaten by his captors as they took him to film the video.

“They tell me, come, we’re going somewhere else for a moment,” he recalls. “On the way, we pass by their big room… I was blindfolded, and I remember the smell of tea they’re preparing and cakes, and hear them chewing. And a skeleton is walking by them now, and they’re enjoying cake and tea.”

His captors then showed him a pit and instructed him to dig, he recalls.

“Then we get to this place, and I see a half-dug pit, and they say, ‘Here, take this, here’s a shovel, go in, this will be your grave,” he recalls. “I dug this grave. It was close to impossible to do physically. I told myself in my head, it could be that if I’m really going to die, I’ll go lay down in this pit.”

He adds, “Think of what it is to dig your own grave. Maybe I am going to die of hunger?”

David, who was kidnapped from the Nova music festival, was released in October along with the rest of the surviving hostages upon the signing of a ceasefire deal in Gaza.

"הולך לידם שלד כרגע – והם מתפנקים על עוגה ותה": אביתר דוד מספר לראשונה על מאחורי הקלעים של הסרטון ההוא מהמנהרות – ועל רגעי האימה שלא מרפים ממנו. הנה הקטע מכתבתה של @GaliGnt ששידרנו הערב: pic.twitter.com/rQ6XVhTNdl

— עובדה (@Uvda_tweet) July 30, 2026

Cyberattacks on several local water systems in the US state of Minnesota carry telltale signs of a hacker group affiliated with Iran, US media reports say.

Around 30 water systems were attacked Sunday and Monday using methods that have pointed investigators to a Tehran-backed group, according to the reports, which cite a security firm and US investigators.

The operation disrupted the water supply in the small town of Braham, in the greater Minneapolis area, for about two hours before service was restored.

According to cybersecurity firm Tenable, the method used in the attack “is consistent with” the CyberAv3ngers cybercriminal group, which the US government accuses of operating under Tehran’s control.

US authorities also suspect Iranian hackers, although they have not formally established responsibility at this stage.

On July 22, just days before the attack, the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) issued an advisory warning of an offensive by Iran-affiliated organizations against online control systems for infrastructure in the United States.

The FBI did not immediately respond to AFP’s request for comment.

In March, the Handala Hack group — also said to be operating under the Iranian government — claimed responsibility for cyberattacks against two US companies: medical equipment supplier Stryker and digital payments platform Verifone. That group has also attacked several Israeli targets.

Stryker confirmed the incident, while Verifone denied that it had occurred.

The hackers described their actions as retaliation for the bombing of an elementary school in Minab, southern Iran, on the first day of the US-Israeli offensive against the Islamic Republic on February 28.

According to the findings of an internal US military investigation revealed by the New York Times, the strike, which killed more than 150 people, appears to have resulted from incorrect coordinates used while targeting an adjacent military base.

It is unclear why the system in Minnesota was targeted, but it is the latest in a series of cyberattacks in the US thought to be linked to Iran, and a former FBI official who spoke to The New York Times said that Tehran is interested in disrupting US water systems.

Times of Israel staff contributed to this report. 

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