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Israel launches 'Little Lebanon' training facility

Israel launches 'Little Lebanon' training facility

Following a ground invasion at the end of 2024, Israel unveiled a new training facility in its north that is meant to mimic a generic southern Lebanese village.
By The Beiruter | September 09, 2025
Israel launches 'Little Lebanon' training facility
An Israeli Merkava tank in the occupied Golan Heights on January 13, 2012. (Shutterstock)

Israel unveiled a new training facility, dubbed "Little Lebanon," in the occupied Golan Heights to train its forces for future combat operations in southern Lebanon.

The site was built on the ruins of the village of Zaoura, where Israel also maintains a military base that was targeted by Hezbollah during the recent war, took two years to construct and is meant to be a replica of a generic southern Lebanese village, complete with residential towers, narrow alleyways, bunkers and tunnels that are meant to simulate combat in Lebanon’s south.

According to the Israeli military, this is its largest military training facility in its north and is meant for the 7th and 401st brigades’ commando and infantry units.

While the area was initially a minefield, it has since been cleared and has hosted several training exercises for the Israeli military. The exercises are overseen by officers who had direct combat experience with Hezbollah in the recent war.

The facility is reportedly large enough to accommodate tanks and would allow for live-fire drills so that Israeli forces can simulate urban warfare.

"This is the closest thing we have to reality," Lt. Col. Zohar, the Israeli military’s head of training at the Ground Forces Command and who oversees the facility, stated.

"We learned from last year’s maneuver against Hezbollah — both our mistakes and our successes — and we built this site to reflect that. Even the small details, like shrubs, boulders, and elevated terrain, are taken from what soldiers actually encountered in the field."

The facility can, according to reports, be seen from the Beaufort Castle area in south Lebanon, around eight kilometers away.

Israel has another training facility located in the south, called Tze’elim in the Negev Desert, which is meant to be a mock-up of a generic Palestinian village. It is known as "Little Gaza." Live-fire, unlike at its newly minted northern counterpart, is not allowed at this facility.

"Little Lebanon" serves as a replacement for a previous plan for a live-fire training facility called "Snir," which was put on hold following hundreds of thousands of dollars in wasted funds. Because of the cancelled plan, the Israeli military’s northern forces were left without a live-fire training facility on the battalion level until the new one was unveiled on September 4.

The first battalion-level reserve exercise scheduled for the "Little Lebanon" facility is expected next month.

Despite the November 27, 2024 ceasefire, Israeli troops have sporadically entered Lebanese territory to destroy what it alleges as being "Hezbollah infrastructure," though it does not provide any evidence for these claims.

    • The Beiruter