Is there light at the end of the (Hezbollah) tunnel?

What happens when you throw a bunch of TikTokers into a Hezbollah tunnel and show them the secrets of Israel’s security threats?

Last week, a group of social-media influencers toured one of Israel’s most dangerous borders, the northern front, and learned about the threats that Hezbollah poses to all residents in the North, including the country’s Druze, Christian and Muslim minorities, whose message was: “If a missile lands on a nearby Jewish village, it threatens all of us.”

While Israel’s public diplomacy efforts hit some barriers this past year due to the pandemic, Hezbollah did not slow down its efforts to disrupt the lives of the local population.

As part of the tour, the IDF provided the group with a tour of the Ramya tunnel, considered Hezbollah’s flagship project in its campaign to conquer the Upper Galilee and destabilize Israel.

As its name suggests, the tunnel was dug from the Lebanese village of Ramya over the course of years. It is the longest (nearly 1.5 kilometers) and deepest (around 80 meters) tunnel dug by Hezbollah and was the last one among six similar tunnels in the area to be neutralized by the IDF.

The Strategic Affairs Ministry organized and led the tour, which was the first of its kind since the coronavirus outbreak more than a year ago.

One of its major focuses was meeting various residents. The tour opened with a panel discussion titled “Minorities Under Attack.”

The four participants represented Israel’s diverse population: Yoseph Haddad, an Arab Christian from Nazareth who heads the Together – Vouch for Each Other organization; Daniel Salami, a Druze and a correspondent for Ynet; Sarit Zehavi, who is Jewish and the CEO and founder of Alma Research Center; and Ibrahim Abu Ahmad, an Arab Muslim and senior researcher at Alma.

The discussion primarily revolved around the nature of Israeli identity for each of the panel participants, while connecting each of their perspectives to its unique context of growing in this country under different circumstances and conditions.

“Everyone should understand that Israeli society is not only Jewish but is composed of all of its components: Druze, Jews, Muslims, Christians and so on,” said Haddad, who was recognized as an IDF disabled veteran after being wounded during the Second Lebanon War in 2006.

There is no doubt that growing up as a part of a minority group in Israel poses challenges, Ahmad said. It is not the challenges that matter, but where one chooses to position himself in relation to those challenges, he said.

“We are still establishing our identity,” Ahmad said. “My grandmother’s story was a Palestinian one; mine is more Israeli… the political reality requires you to choose sides, but I believe in being in the middle. I believe in my heritage; I have no shame in that. At the same time, I was raised here, and growing up in Israel is also part of who I am.”

In follow-up questions and later conversations with Haddad and Ahmad, one thing seemed to connect everyone: everyday life and its often devastating disruption – regardless of race, gender or religion – by the ongoing security situation with Hezbollah, Iran’s proxy in Lebanon.

“Palestinians are starting to realize that [Hezbollah leader Hassan] Nasrallah is using the Palestinian story as a tool and not one that will serve the Palestinians,” Ahmad said.

The coronavirus has had an unexpected effect in that regard, raising more support for the IDF than ever before, with numerous reports indicating a generally warm welcome by Arab society during the pandemic, especially in the North.

“COVID has helped unite minorities in northern Israel,” Ahmad said.

“There is an understanding that if a missile lands on a nearby Jewish village, it threatens all of us,” he said, adding that “this was not the situation in the past.”

Haddad said Israel’s Arab population in the North “supports the IDF more when it comes to the Hezbollah front,” which possibly indicates a perceptional change in regard to the IDF and the State of Israel as a whole.

Both Haddad and Ahmad said there was currently no political party that represents their views, which are gaining acceptance within the general Arab public. They said they were receiving more support for voicing ideas that consider all parts of Israeli society.

The group later met with Nadav, Kibbutz Hanita’s security officer. The kibbutz is located just meters away from the Lebanese border and is one of the original Tower and Stockade settlements. It was built in the late 1930s as a means of countering the Arab Revolt and as a fortifying presence.

When asked about the daily challenges the kibbutz faces, Nadav spoke mostly about the uncertainty and the grave responsibility that locals have in case of an emergency.

“Hezbollah sees and documents everything we do,” he told the group. “During the first few minutes of an incident, we are responsible for defending ourselves.”

While the group got acquainted with the security situation in the North and the various ways it affects the local residents, it was not the sole objective of the tour. Rather, it was meant to provide the participants with a platform that will allow them to create better content and reach more people.

The group is called DigiTell and was established three years ago by Ido Daniel, the Strategic Affair Ministry’s director of digital strategy. Today, the initiative is an inseparable part of the ministry and plays an integral part in bringing its vision to life: fighting the global Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement by creating reliable content that exposes the truth and tells Israel’s story by the people who actually live its reality.

“This global network of digital influencers and social-media managers includes more than 100 individuals,” Daniel told The Jerusalem Post. “Some are part of wider organizations, and some are completely independent.”

“Our objective was to reach out to these individuals on behalf of the State of Israel, for the first time, and to provide them with a platform that allows them to do a better job by providing them with a framework, networking and resources,” he said, adding that the most effective tool he has found for encouraging creative collaborations is letting people meet face to face. We give them tools that are meant to empower them, but each and every one of them is their own master. They don’t work for me.”

Before the pandemic started, the ministry would provide the group with seminars that included lectures and training by some of the biggest names in the industry, Daniel said.

“Twitter sent a team and held a panel about the platform itself,” he said. “The idea is to always be learning from one another.”

It seems to be working. A TikTok video published by one of the participants from within Hezbollah’s Ramya tunnel has received almost 400,000 views in only a few days.

“It was broadcasted live,” Daniel said. “People were watching in a live feed what a terrorist tunnel meant to hurt Israeli citizens looks like.”