New evidence on Hezbollah....

They are once again in southern Lebanon...

Ahead of the anniversary of the Second Lebanon War, the IDF Northern Command on Wednesday declassified for the first time evidence of Hizbullah's growing presence inside close to 200 villages in southern Lebanon.

Using the village of el-Hiyyam - located about 20km north of Kiryat Shmona- as an example, the IDF showed with extensive footage, videos and maps the homes that Hizbullah has taken over and used to establish weapons storage and command and control centers. The visual materials also revealed the location of the Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs), some of them weighing up to half a ton, which are located throughout the village.

The IDF recently dispatched a delegation to United Nations headquarters in New York to present the evidence to the international community. The evidence was also presented to the new commander of UNIFIL, Maj-Gen Alberto Asarta Cuevas.

The IDF said that Hizbullah today maintains a force of about 20,000 guerrilla fighters throughout southern Lebanon, who are tasked with deterring an IDF ground incursion, as well as activating Hizbullah's extensive missile capability which allows them to strike any point within Israel today.

Hizbullah is estimated to have 40,000 short-, medium- and long-range missiles.

Hizbullah has split up its forces in southern Lebanon into three different divisions: The Southern Division, the IDF said, consists of 5,000 guerrilla fighters, 30,000 missiles and rockets as well as a number of subdivisions. Each subdivision is responsible for approximately 15 villages. Each village contains between 20 and 200 fighters, hundreds of mortar shells, hundreds of short-and medium- range rockets, as well as a number of command centers.

In the maps unveiled by the IDF, Hizbullah weapons caches are shown approximately 50 meters from schools and hospitals. Storage and command centers are located in most cases inside or adjacent to the homes of Lebanese civilians.

'It is important to show the world that Hizbullah has built up its military infrastructure inside villages with the objective that we will kill the maximum amount of civilians in a future conflict" a senior IDF officer said Wednesday.