Almost a year after Israel’s complacency and overconfidence were exploited by Hamas to wreak devastation in the south, and Hezbollah began relentless rocket fire to force the evacuation of a widening swath of the north, the IDF on Friday evening took its most significant step yet toward reasserting its military primacy and reassuring Israel’s battered citizens that it can protect them from its enemies.

Having repeatedly warned Hezbollah in recent weeks that it was stepping up its attacks “step by step” and would continue to do so until the 60,000 displaced residents of the north could safely return, Israel’s political and military leadership showed that, in contrast to previous years of threats and bluster, it meant what it was saying this time.

And unlike the uncertain resort to force against Hamas after October 7, the security establishment demonstrated that, where Hezbollah was concerned, it had developed highly effective, and often unexpected, capabilities.

September 17’s spectacular detonation of thousands of Hezbollah pagers on their owners — an attack for which Israel has been blamed but has not acknowledged responsibility — was highly significant both practically and symbolically. It had manifestly been planned for years. It required astounding technical prowess. It showed pinpoint intel, extending to the identities and real-time movements of thousands of Hezbollah operatives across Lebanon and beyond. And it was carried out to exceptional effect.

After that, as promised, came escalating attacks — targeted strikes that eliminated most of the Hezbollah leadership, a blast that took out numerous key figures in the terror army’s elite Radwan Force who had long been working on a major invasion of the Galilee, and days of raids on Hezbollah’s rockets, missiles and other weaponry, much of it emplaced in the homes of civilians.

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