Hezbollah Nature Reserves were a system of Hezbollah strongholds built in Southern Lebanon between the Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon 2000 and the 2006 Lebanon war. The term "Nature Reserve" (Hebrew: שמורת טבע‎‎, shmorat tev’a) was originally IDF slang and refer to the fact that they were primarily placed in the countryside away from habitation and were declared off-limits to the IDF during the war, due to fear of high casualties. After the war UNIFIL searched southern Lebanon and found 33 Nature Reserves scattered across the countryside.