Israeli troops have driven Hezbollah fighters from tunnels under the strategic Ali al-Taher ridge in southern Lebanon, Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz ​said on Friday. The Iran-aligned Shiite group did not immediately comment. Israel had said Hezbollah fighters were embedded ⁠in tunnels under the ridge, which overlooks a wide area and had become one of the most hotly contested areas in the Israel-Hezbollah war, despite a ceasefire ‌announced in June. Read moreIsraeli strikes kill 11 in southern Lebanon, Hezbollah threatens to retaliate "The mission was completed and the tunnels were cleared of terrorists," Katz said on social media, after a ​statement by the military late on Thursday saying it had operational control of the ridge. Reuters reported on Thursday that Iran had warned the United States last month that ⁠it would respond forcefully to an Israeli assault on its Hezbollah allies' positions within the ridge. For its part, the Shiite Muslim group had said it would resist any Israeli assault. The ‌Israeli military said some Hezbollah fighters had been "eliminated", while others had fled. Hezbollah did not immediately respond to a request for comment and Reuters was not able to independently verify the status of the ridge. Watch moreUNIFIL peacekeepers patrol south Lebanon, caught between Israel and Hezbollah The ridge, a flashpoint since Tehran-backed Hezbollah drew Lebanon into the Middle East war in March following the US-Israeli killing of Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, lies close to the major city of Nabatieh and the Litani river. It is just a few kilometres from UNESCO-listed Beaufort castle, another strategic site that Israel captured in recent months. The Israeli military on Thursday said that the tunnel network included "command centres (and) weapons storage rooms". "The infrastructure is a strategic underground network that was built over two decades and funded and planned by the Iranian terror regime," it added. Kahwaji, who heads the INEGMA military analysis institute, said the hilltops overlook Iqlim al-Tuffah, an area further from the border where Hezbollah holds sway, as well as part of the country's east. Control of the area would therefore "give the Israelis an easy passage to move on both sides".