Hezbollah Footage Shows Successful Kornet Missile Attacks on Israeli Tank Units in Lebanon

The Lebanese paramilitary group Hezbollah has released footage showing successful strikes on Israeli Merkava main battle tanks, one of which was seen being destroyed in the Tel Al-Nahas area on the outskirts of the town of Kafr Kila in southern Lebanon. Footage has shown extensive use of Russian Kornet anti-tank missiles, which were first used by the paramilitary group to repel an Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 2006. Hezbollah for the first time since 2024 initiated hostilities with Israeli forces on March 1, in response to Israeli and U.S. attacks on its close strategic partner Iran. The paramilitary group has achieved significant successes against Israeli armour on multiple occasions, and after Israel launched an invasion of Southern Lebanon in late September 2024, multiple reports from both Lebanese and Israeli sources indicated that Israeli ground units took significant losses in Hezbollah’s ambushes. Further reports specified the losses of Merkava tanks. 

Hezbollah has previously demonstrated advanced anti-tank capabilities, and when repelling an Israeli invasion in 2006 made effective use of Kornet missiles to destroy multiple Merkava III and Merkava IV tanks. Fighting with North Korean influenced tactics, the paramilitary group has also benefitted extensively from support from Korean specialists in the early 2000s who oversaw the construction of a vast network of underground tunnels, bunkers and other military facilities stretching for kilometres across southern Lebanon. Israeli experts described Hezbollah’s paramilitary units as operating as “a defensive guerrilla force organised along North Korean lines,” concluding: “All the underground facilities [Hezbollah’s], including arms dumps, food stocks, dispensaries for the wounded, were put in place primarily in 2003–2004 under the supervision of North Korean instructors.”

The growing difficulties Israeli forces have reportedly faced in their initial days of hostilities with Hezbollah have fuelled calls in the United States, including among multiple senators, to dispatch forces to support Israeli offensives into Lebanon. Hezbollah’s North Korean tunnel networks have consistently proven to be key to its success in countering Israeli armoured advances, allowing its forces to be concealed underground from hostile surveillance and air strikes, and launch ambushes using a wide range of anti-tank weapons. The paramilitary group’s tactics have included extensive use of pre-surveyed firing lanes, and employment of strict fire discipline to rapidly redeploy after engaging. 

Hezbollah has made use of more advanced types of anti-tank guided missiles than the Kornet in the past, most notably the Iranian Badr man-portable anti-tank missile system. The Badr has a comparable performance to the Israeli Spike and U.S. Javelin missiles, and was reportedly closely based on the Spike design after these were captured from Israeli forces in 2006. Nevertheless, these missile have only been filmed in use striking air defence systems and armoured vehicles across the Israeli border, rather than striking Israeli tanks inside Lebanon, possibly because the Kornet better suits Hezbollah’s ambush tactics which emphasise close quarter engagements. 

Israel has suffered from a shortage of Merkava tanks, and preceding its invasion of Lebanon in November 2024, footage frequently showed successful attacks by Hamas paramilitary units against the tanks in the Gaza Strip. These attacks often involved pairing planted explosives with the use of rocket propelled grenades, and using the cover of cities to ambush the vehicles. Some of these ambushes destroyed heavily enhanced new Merakva IV variants with advanced Trophy active protection, killing their crews. Hamas paramiltiary units are significantly less well trained or equipped than Hezbollah units, and as a result losses in Southern Lebanon have been much more intense than those seen in Gaza.