Israeli strike on Hezbollah more devastating than 2024 pager attack, IDF says

Hezbollah, an Iran-backed terrorist group, saw its command structure across Lebanon come under what Israeli officials described as one of the most devastating blows of the war April 8.

Nearly simultaneously, explosions tore through Beirut, Lebanon, the Beqaa Valley and southern Lebanon as roughly 50 Israeli aircraft struck more than 100 Hezbollah targets.

The targets were not rocket launchers or weapons depots, according to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), but the nerve centers of the organization — command rooms, intelligence headquarters and offices where Hezbollah commanders planned the next stage of the fight.

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The strike marked a new phase in the war between Israel and Hezbollah, which erupted March 2 after Hezbollah entered the conflict in support of Iran, one day after U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran and the killing of Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. 

Since then, Hezbollah has fired rockets, drones and anti-tank missiles into northern Israel, while Israel has responded with widening airstrikes and a ground offensive inside southern Lebanon.

"Within only a minute, the IDF eliminated 250 Hezbollah terrorists in three areas simultaneously," the Israeli military said in a statement, adding the assessment is still ongoing. 

Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani, an IDF spokesman, told Fox News Digital the strike was the result of weeks of intelligence work.

Israeli intelligence agencies tracked Hezbollah operatives as they moved between apartments, offices and safe houses across Lebanon.

"The timing had to do with the preparations," Shoshani said. "There was weeks of amazing intelligence."

Asked whether the operation showed Israel still has deep penetration inside Hezbollah despite months of war, Shoshani pointed to the scale of the attack.

"The fact that we were able to find 250 terrorists hiding in different locations in Lebanon, many of them in locations for recent weeks, eliminating them in real time, I think the capabilities speak for themselves," he said.

Lebanese President Joseph Aoun condemned Wednesday's strikes.

"The scale of the killing and destruction in Lebanon today is nothing short of horrific," said United Nations Human Rights Chief Volker Türk. "Such carnage, within hours of agreeing to a ceasefire with Iran, defies belief."

"This response will continue until the Israeli-American aggression against our country and our people ceases," Hezbollah said in a statement.

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The strike drew a comparison to the "beeper" operation in September 2024, when thousands of pagers and walkie-talkies used by Hezbollah operatives exploded almost simultaneously across Lebanon and Syria in an operation widely attributed to Israel.

The blasts killed more than 40 people and wounded roughly 4,000, according to Lebanese authorities, while Hezbollah later acknowledged that about 1,500 fighters were taken out of action. The operation shattered Hezbollah's communications network and became the benchmark in Israel for a strike that fundamentally changed the battlefield.

"The beeper had more … effective injuries. That was the purpose of it," Shoshani said. "But both targeted hundreds of terrorists and within 60 seconds."

Like the beeper operation, he said, the April 8 strike was intended not just to kill operatives but to throw Hezbollah into disarray.

"It was important to the aspect of creating disarray, of breaking their chain of command, breaking their command and patrol capabilities and kind of tilting the organization out of balance," he said.

A former Israeli intelligence official, speaking on background, said the strike may not have reached the level of the beeper operation, but it appeared to hit an unusually broad layer of Hezbollah's middle ranks. 

Hezbollah remains in shock from the blow, according to the former official, even if that has not yet been reflected in a drop in its rocket fire.

But he cautioned against judging the operation only by the number of people killed.

The real measure, he said, is whether the strike changes the course of the war and leaves Hezbollah less able to operate.

The IDF said many of those killed belonged to Hezbollah's Radwan Force, Hezbollah's most capable and best-trained combat unit, intelligence apparatus, missile units and aerial Unit 127. 

The Israeli military said most of the targets were embedded inside civilian areas.

"Most of the infrastructure that was struck was located within the heart of the civilian population," the IDF said.

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Shoshani said Israel warned civilians to evacuate before the strikes, but Hezbollah moved its operatives into new civilian locations.

"When we gave the warnings for areas, civilians moved out, then Hezbollah saw that they moved out and started hiding behind civilians in new locations," he said.

Despite the blow, Israeli officials say Hezbollah remains a major threat. Shoshani said the group, which before the war possessed between 150,000 and 200,000 rockets and missiles, still has the ability to fire into Israel.

"They still are a real threat for our civilians," he said.

The strike comes as Israel and Lebanon opened their first direct talks in more than three decades at the U.S. State Department in Washington. 

Lebanese President Joseph Aoun has signaled willingness to discuss normalization and the eventual disarmament of Hezbollah, while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has insisted there will be no ceasefire until Hezbollah is dismantled and pushed back from the border.

Within hours of the diplomatic opening, Israeli warplanes again struck Lebanon and Hezbollah fired rockets into northern Israel.

Reuters contributed to this report.