Airstrikes on Hezbollah over last day most extensive ever carried out by IAF — senior officer

A senior Israeli Air Force officer says the airstrikes carried out over the past day against Hezbollah targets in Lebanon are the most extensive the IAF has carried out in its history.

More than 1,600 Hezbollah sites, mostly homes where weapons were stored, were struck in southern Lebanon and the Beqaa Valley within a day, according to the IDF.

The senior IAF officer says the widespread airstrikes are “changing the operational situation in the north, changing the reality.”

He says Hezbollah had two main capabilities that it built up over decades: the elite Radwan Force and its arsenal of rockets, missiles, and drones. The top leadership of the Radwan Force, tasked with invading Israel, was killed in an Israeli airstrike on Friday. Hezbollah’s rocket and drone capabilities have been targeted across Lebanon in the past day.

The official says the IAF is working to strike “all of their rocket capabilities, all of them” and that it is “very determined” to do so.

Hezbollah still has rocket capabilities, but they have been harmed significantly in the recent strikes, the official says.

The official says the IAF has worked to prevent civilian harm in the widespread strikes, and that mitigating harm to civilians is a significant part of its offensive plans. The IDF issued warnings to civilians to leave homes where Hezbollah had stored weapons, hours before launching the strikes.

The official says Hezbollah has endangered Lebanese civilians twofold: first by placing the weapons in their homes, and second by telling civilians to ignore the IDF’s evacuation calls, he says.

Some 600 people have been killed in the strikes since yesterday, according to Lebanese health officials. The IDF has assessed that many Hezbollah operatives are among the dead.