Israel has struck hard against Hezbollah forces in Lebanon, and this time they made it personal; they didn't go after weapons caches or logistics, instead targeting Hezbollah's members and leaders directly, in an attack that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has done more damage than the famous 2024 pager attacks.
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.
Going for the leadership isn't the worst tactic in the world, especially when you consider that the leadership in organizations like this tends to be the only members with any brains to speak of; most of the run-of-the-mill jihadis are pretty much the dictionary definition of useful idiots. Also, despotic rulers tend not to like having people around who have much of anything in the way of gray matter, as your smarter goblins may harbor notions of taking over. So Israel probably got a lot of bang for their buck on this deal.
But here's the interesting statement:
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.
Now, this recent attack may have reduced more Hezbollah leaders to ambient temperature, but there can be little doubt that the pager attack had a greater psychological impact.
Read More: BOOM! New Wave of Exploding Devices in Lebanon
'They Got a Good Price'-Former Mossad Agent Describes Ingenious Exploding Pager Plot
Why? Here's why, and I'm going to tell you.
Consider the impact of those waves of pager explosions on your typical Hezbollah goblin. They have already been forced to give up their cellular phones, because the Israelis had demonstrated an uncanny ability in using them to track the average goblin's movements - and the movement of their leaders. So the leaders and line goblins alike switch to pagers, and then, in a long, complex, far-seeing operation, the Mossad managed to intercept shipments of pagers and pack them with explosives.
Now the Hezbollah goblins are looking at their personal electronics and seeing grenades. This isn't like a jet fighter firing missiles and dropping bombs; this is something that can go off at any time, with no warning, and when you consider where most people carry these things - the front pants pocket - they can do some real, horrifying damage. If they don't kill a guy, they may make him wish it had.
That's more than just a way to take goblins off the board. That's one of the neater pieces of psychological warfare we've seen in recent decades. Best of all, nobody in Hezbollah had any idea what was coming until pagers started exploding.
Someone in Israel has been reading their Sun Tzu:
Let your plans be dark and impenetrable as night, and when you move, fall like a thunderbolt.
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