In the north of Israel, there is a place where the war with Hezbollah is seen not through politicians’ statements, but through hardware. Weapons found and captured by the IDF in southern Lebanon are brought there: machine guns, mortars, rockets, grenade launchers, drones, ammunition, suicide belts, bulletproof vests, and equipment.
On May 8, 2026, the Israeli portal “Vesti” reported on the trophy weapons center of the IDF’s Technology and Logistics Directorate. The picture seen there by military correspondent Yair Kraus looks like a compressed history of all of Israel’s enemies at once: Nazi weapons, Soviet traces, Russian anti-tank systems, Iranian supplies, and Chinese components.
This is not a museum. This is a working center for intelligence analysis.
Each weapon unit here answers one simple question: who, with what, and how prepared Hezbollah for the next strike on northern Israel. And the more trophies arrive at the center, the clearer the main point becomes: disarming Hezbollah with words, promises, or resolutions will not work.
What the IDF found in southern Lebanon
Reserve Lieutenant Colonel Idan Ketler has been serving in the IDF’s trophy weapons collection center for about 20 years. He knows Hezbollah’s arsenals not from reports, but from specific samples that fighters take out of caves, houses, warehouses, hospitals, and civilian objects in southern Lebanon.
According to him, in just one week, about 1,000 units of weapons were delivered to the center, discovered by the Givati Brigade in one of the caves in the Bint Jbeil area — about four kilometers from the Israeli border.
This distance does not sound abstract to the residents of northern Israel. Four kilometers is not ‘somewhere there, in Lebanon.’ It’s almost next to homes, schools, kibbutzim, roads, farms, and evacuated communities of Galilee.
Since March 1, 2026, when hostilities in Lebanon resumed after Hezbollah sided with Iran amid the ‘Lion’s Roar’ operation, more than 7,500 units of weapons have been delivered to the center. And this, as the military emphasizes, is only part of what was found.
Among the trophies are boxes of ammunition, small arms, sniper rifles, machine guns, grenade launchers, Kornet and Fagot anti-tank missiles, strike drones, uniforms, bulletproof vests, helmets, and modern combat equipment.
The origin also speaks for itself: Iran, China, Russia.
A machine gun from the Third Reich — and traces of the Soviet army
One of the most symbolic exhibits is the MG-34 machine gun, adopted by the Wehrmacht back in 1934. Idan Ketler shows the year of manufacture and Nazi markings.
His phrase sounds almost like bitter historical irony: ‘Greetings from the Third Reich.’
The machine gun is old, but according to the officer, it is well preserved. It was found in southern Lebanon. And the very fact that weapons from Nazi Germany ended up in the hands of a Shiite terrorist organization at Israel’s borders looks not just strange, but symbolically grim.
The weapon has a stamp indicating that it was in the possession of the Soviet army. Probably, this machine gun was once a trophy, then passed from hand to hand for decades and eventually ended up in Lebanon — through military supplies, old warehouses, smuggling, or chains of ‘brotherly help.’
For Israel, a state created after the Holocaust of European Jewry, such a find has special meaning. Weapons that served Hitler’s army, almost a century later, are again near Jewish communities — now in the hands of Hezbollah.
Why Hezbollah’s trophies are not just a weapons depot
The IDF’s trophy weapons center operates not as an exhibition, but as an analytical system. Each find is sorted by type, model, country of origin, technical condition, and possible supply route.
Technical analysis is carried out, among others, by reserve senior warrant officer Ziv from the YAHALOM special unit. His task is to check the sample for traps, serviceability, origin, and intelligence value.
Sometimes the weapon looks standard, but the details reveal much more: markings, modifications, storage method, repair traces, packaging, electronic elements, type of fuse, method of connection to the launch system.
Particularly interesting samples are sent to the laboratory. There they are studied more deeply because some things cannot be understood by appearance.
As Ziv says, there you find things that ‘you won’t see in any catalog.’ And this is an important phrase. Hezbollah does not just receive ready-made weapons. It adapts them, hides them, modifies them, combines them, and integrates them into the civilian environment.
For readers of NANews — Israel News | Nikk.Agency, this topic is important not only as a military report. Northern Israel has been living for many months in a reality where the threat from Lebanon is not theoretical. Trophies from southern Lebanon show that behind every siren, every strike, and every evacuation lies a huge infrastructure of armed terror.
The Lebanese army ‘did not see’ what the IDF found
Particularly harsh in this material is the assessment of Lieutenant Colonel Ketler on the role of the Lebanese army. According to him, it was the one that pledged to disarm Hezbollah but has not actually coped with this task.
‘What we see here is the weapon that the Lebanese army ‘did not see’,’ explains the officer.
The phrase sounds restrained, but the meaning is direct: if Israel does not remove this weapon itself, no one will.
This is a key conclusion for the Israeli audience. International agreements, Beirut’s promises, and diplomatic formulations do not destroy a rocket in a house, a mortar in a cave, or a launch position behind a cinder block wall. Only a ground operation destroys them.
Weapons in hospitals, homes, and kindergartens
The deputy commander of the Givati Brigade, Lieutenant Colonel C., speaks directly: weapons in southern Lebanon are everywhere. Not only in warehouses and caches but also in civilian infrastructure.
According to him, most of the found samples were hidden among objects that outwardly should look like ordinary life: houses, hospitals, kindergartens, utility rooms.
The officer gives an example: a machine gun was discovered during the inspection of a hospital in southern Lebanon. In another place, entering a building, the military saw a rocket practically in a living space. A cinder block wall, a few hammer blows — and the position is ready for launch.
This is not chaos and not an accident. This is a system.
Hezbollah has been building military infrastructure for years so that the Israeli army faces a double trap each time. On one side — a real threat to the residents of northern Israel. On the other — a civilian shell that can later be used in an information war against Israel itself.
Where these rockets were aimed
The hardest part of this story is not the amount of weapons, but the direction of their possible use.
The military explains: by the location of the position, you can draw a line and understand which Israeli settlement the rocket or shell was supposed to fly to. This is no longer an abstract threat to the ‘north.’ These are specific settlements, specific houses, specific families.
Reserve Lieutenant Colonel Y., commander of the 7056th Battalion of the 146th Division, lives in Kiryat Shmona himself. For him, trophy weapons are not just a subject of analysis. He understands that part of these systems could have been aimed at his home.
That is why his words sound especially personal. To achieve a complete operational result, months of work are needed. And, in his assessment, it is frustrating to see that the leadership of Lebanon is not fulfilling what it was supposed to do.
As long as weapons remain in homes, hospitals, caves, and kindergartens in southern Lebanon, there will be no security in northern Israel.
Why ‘new weapons will always come’
The phrase that new weapons will always come sounds like one of the most unpleasant conclusions of the report. Hezbollah will lose part of its arsenal — and will try to replenish it again. A warehouse will be found — another will appear. A batch will be destroyed — a new one will arrive.
This is how a terrorist organization works, which has external patrons, supply routes, an ideological base, and military infrastructure embedded in the territory of Lebanon.
Iran remains the main strategic source of strength for Hezbollah. Russian and Soviet samples, Chinese elements, old European trophies, and modern drones only show how wide the arms market has become, which feeds the threat at Israel’s borders.
Therefore, the question is not only how many units of weapons the IDF removed this week. The question is how many are still hidden, how many are already on supply routes, and how many will be laid in new caches if the pressure weakens.
For Israel, this means one harsh reality: the security of northern communities cannot be outsourced. Not to Lebanon, not to international mediators, not to promises, not to documents.
Trophies from southern Lebanon are not just evidence of the past. They are a warning about the future.
A machine gun from the Führer, a mortar from Putin, rockets from Iran, and arms chains through different countries form one picture: against Israel, not a separate Hezbollah warehouse is working, but a whole system where old wars, new supplies, and terrorist infrastructure connect at the very border.
And if the IDF does not uncover these caches, check caves, enter buildings, and remove weapons, it will remain where it was hidden: next to Israeli homes, aimed at the north of the country.