Claim by the Islamic Republic Following the Release of Hezbollah's Missile Site Video: We Have These 'Missile Cities' Across the Country

On Friday, August 16, Hezbollah Lebanon released a video showing its fighters driving trucks carrying missile launchers and passing through tunnels towards an underground site. Shortly after the video was released, the Islamic Republic's embassy in Beirut also reposted these images on 'X', stating that there are 'missile cities' across Iran that 'can attack the enemy from any point of Iranian soil.' This 4-minute and 35-second video is the latest in a series of images that this Iran-backed group has released to showcase its claimed military capabilities in parallel with the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. The video depicts Hezbollah members riding motorcycles and more than ten trucks through tunnels. The time and location of the video recording cannot be independently verified. At the end of the video, two large metal doors open, revealing a forested area and sky in a way that indicates they are underground passages. One of the trucks also directs its rocket cargo towards the entrance. In this video, the facility is referred to as 'Imad 4', referencing Imad Mughniyeh, one of Hezbollah's commanders who was killed in 2008 and was involved in deadly attacks against Western and Israeli targets in the 1980s and 1990s. The walls of the tunnel in the released film are covered with posters of Mughniyeh, Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah's Secretary-General, and Qassem Soleimani, the slain commander of the Quds Force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. In 2019, Israel announced that it had discovered and destroyed Hezbollah's 'attack tunnels' dug from Lebanon into Israeli territory. At that time, Nasrallah stated that the group had had the ability to cross into northern Israel for 'years'. The deadly attack on August 1 by Israel against Foad Shukr, Hezbollah's most senior military commander, and the attack attributed to Israel against Ismail Haniyeh, the former political bureau chief of Hamas, on the morning of August 2 has placed the Middle East on the brink of a direct confrontation between the Iranian government and its proxy groups, especially Hezbollah, on one side, and Israel and its allies on the other. Senior officials of the Islamic Republic, including Ali Khamenei, the leader, and Hassan Nasrallah, the Secretary-General of Hezbollah, have threatened that they will not leave these attacks unanswered. In response, Israel, which has not yet claimed responsibility for the killing of Ismail Haniyeh, has warned that it is prepared for any scenario and that any party attacking the country will have to pay a heavy price. Biden: We are closer to a 'ceasefire agreement' in Gaza than ever before. Israel has sought support from France and Britain for a possible retaliatory attack on Iran. Israeli security services warn: The Islamic Republic and Hezbollah may assassinate senior officials. Washington Post: Hezbollah Lebanon will not initiate retaliatory operations during ceasefire negotiations in Gaza. The U.S. Treasury Department has sanctioned the commercial networks of Yemen's Houthis and Hezbollah Lebanon. The White House told Voice of America: The claim of transferring information regarding Mossad agents to the Iranian government is 'absolutely false'. Ahmadreza Afshari, a member of the IRGC Aerospace Force in Syria, was killed. Hezbollah reported the death of two of its members in an Israeli drone attack in southern Lebanon.