The IDF is preparing for a possible attack by Hizbullah terrorists, once the prisoner swap for kidnapped IDF reservists Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev is completed and arch-terrorist Samir Kuntar is safely returned to Lebanon on Wednesday.
According to the Associated Press, the military is beefing up its forces along the northern border, a fact not widely publicized until now.
Officials quoted by the news agency on condition of anonymity said that Israel is on alert for a retaliatory strike in revenge for the assassination of the terrorist organization's second-in-command, Imad Mughniyeh, in February.
Hizbullah still blames Israel for the killing, despite various theories that other Arab entities may have been responsible for the strike.
The Israel Prison Service issued a statement Monday afternoon saying that Israel will release "four illegal Lebanese fighters" on Wednesday, along with Lebanese terrorist Samir Kuntar, whose infiltration and attack on Nahariya in 1979 was not mentioned.
The four "fighters" were captured by the IDF during the 2006 Second Lebanon War against the terrorist organization. The Lebanese Army was not actively involved in the war.
Kuntar and the four other live terrorists will be traded for Goldwasser and Regev, both of whom are believed to be dead.
In addition, the bodies of some 190 terrorists have been exhumed from a northern cemetery in preparation for a swap in return for remains of IDF soldiers who were killed on the field during the war.
Al Jazeera Offers A View of the Hizbullah War Tunnels
The Arabic Al Jazeera satellite television news network has given its viewers an inside look at the tunnels used by Hizbullah guerrillas during the war, which the network called a military failure for Israel.
The video clips revealed that the tunnels were equipped with showers, kitchens and "were planned like a house," according to the program's anchorman, Ghassan Bin Jiddu.
One clip showed a restroom with a water tank and a fan for ventilation. Bin Jiddu explained that it took eight months to a year to complete the construction of one tunnel.
Hizbullah honeycombed Southern Lebanon with such tunnels in the years following Israel's 2000 withdrawal from the security buffer zone it had previously maintained in the region, ordered by then-Prime Minister Ehud Barak.