The Israeli army has released footage of an operation it says was one of the most complex in Israel's history, The Telegraph reports.

In the dead of night on September 8, a hundred elite Israeli commandos in four helicopters took off from an unknown base. Their destination was a mountain in the Masyaf area of ​​western Syria, approximately 200 kilometers from Israel's northern border.

Helicopters carrying soldiers from the Shaldag special unit flew extremely low over the Mediterranean Sea to avoid the air defenses and radars of Bashar al-Assad's regime as they crossed Lebanon and entered Syria.

At the same time, Israeli warplanes, naval missile boats and drones launched a massive wave of attacks on the target - an Iranian missile factory hidden on a large mountain. The commandos started the operation on the ground. About 30 Syrian soldiers and guards were killed before commandos stormed the underground facility, which had been under close surveillance by Israeli intelligence since 2017.

The complex, which the IDF calls the Deep Layer, is located at a depth of 70 to 130 meters underground and is almost impossible to destroy by airstrikes.

According to the IDF, it was a facility of critical importance to Iran. It featured "advanced production lines designed to produce hundreds of long-range precision-guided missiles and short-range missiles each year."

At the time of the attack, the facility was not yet fully completed, the first rockets had already been produced and rocket engines were being mass-produced, the IDF reported. After securing the facility, the commandos set out on a dual mission: gathering intelligence and destroying the site.

Soldiers stormed the huge compound using explosives to destroy the heavy doors. Footage from the commandos' body cameras shows them walking through a maze of corridors, where they found cars, machines for making rocket parts, piles of documents, rocket engines.

After gathering all possible information, the commandos placed 300 kilograms of explosives ready for detonation at a distance. As soon as the soldiers returned to the helicopter, the bombs were activated.

The whole action lasted a total of three hours, and was prepared for seven years. It is considered one of the most complex in Israeli history and involved 21 fighter jets, 14 transport planes, five drones and six helicopters.

"This was one of the most important preventive operations we undertook against the Iranian axis' attempts to arm themselves to attack us. It testifies to our courage and determination to act everywhere to defend ourselves," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said. .