--- title: "Israel's Strike on Iran: Operation Days of Repentance and the War Across the Middle East" description: "The war in Lebanon is no longer a war in Lebanon. After nearly a month of Israeli military operations on Lebanese soil, and after nearly two months of sustained, intense hostilities between Israel and the militant terror group Hezbollah, the boundaries of the Lebanese nation are no longer enough to contain the fighting. Israeli missiles have come crashing down across Iran. Hezbollah is wounded but bitterly resolved to keep fighting. And around the wider Middle East, warning signs indicate that the worst may still lie ahead.\n\nThis installment of WarFronts' continuing coverage of the conflict examines Israel's wave of attacks against Iranian sovereign territory, the state of affairs in Lebanon — both on the ground, where Israeli and Hezbollah forces battle through the highlands, and in the sky, where each side tries to wreak havoc on the other — and both the fleeting prospects that remain for peace and the deeply troubling signals pointing in the opposite direction.\n\nThis is Shock and Awe in Lebanon, Part Five. What follows is current as of the end of the day, Israel-Lebanon time, on Wednesday, October 30, 2024; events after that date are not reflected here.\n\nThe central thesis is straightforward and uncomfortable: even as Israel's strike on Iran was engineered to punish without igniting a wider war, every measured step it takes deeper into Lebanon makes that wider war more likely, not less.\n\n## Key Takeaways\n\n- In the early hours of October 26, 2024, Israel struck roughly twenty targets across Iran in Operation Days of Repentance — the first time Israel ever openly acknowledged an attack on Iranian soil.\n- More than 100 Israeli aircraft, including stealth F-35 \"Adir\" jets, first neutralized air-defense batteries in Syria and Iraq, then destroyed most or all of Iran's advanced S-300 surface-to-air systems, leaving Iran's skies badly exposed.\n- The strike was tightly calibrated: it targeted Iran's missile-production capacity, including hard-to-replace Chinese-made solid-fuel mixers, while deliberately sparing nuclear, energy, and leadership sites — signaling restraint, not incapacity.\n- Iran chose to downplay the strike and hinted that retaliation could be waived if a Gaza or Lebanon ceasefire materialized, suggesting it cannot afford a heavier Israeli follow-up.\n- On the ground, the IDF deepened its advance into southern Lebanon toward Khiam while Hezbollah named Naim Qassem its new leader, and a U.S. election loomed over any real prospect of a ceasefire.\n\n## The Grand Retaliation\n\nIn the early hours of October 26, 2024, Iran came under attack. In the capital, Tehran, explosions thundered through the streets at roughly 2:15 a.m. local time, shattering windows and waking countless Iranians from their sleep. There, and in two other provinces, missiles struck approximately twenty targets in a series of airstrikes that arrived in waves rather than all at once. The barrage lasted more than three hours, until dawn, after which silence settled over the city until about half-past six that morning. At that point the Israel Defense Forces — three national borders away — made an announcement: their strikes on Iran had officially concluded.\n\nFrom the Israeli side, the operation looked different. Not long after midnight on Saturday morning, more than a hundred combat aircraft took off from airstrips inside Israel for an action dubbed Operation Days of Repentance. The force included American-made F-15 and F-16 fighter jets, unmanned drones, and stealthy fifth-generation F-35 Lightnings, known in Israel as the Adir. To reach Iran on the most direct path, the aircraft would have to cross either Jordanian or Syrian territory and then Iraq — and to do it effectively, they had to maintain a stealthy approach.\n\nOn their way in, the first wave targeted and destroyed air-defense batteries in both Syria and Iraq, preventing the pro-Iran governments of either nation from acting and denying Iran any early-warning signal before the jets arrived. Once they reached the edge of Iranian airspace, that first wave conducted precision strikes against Iranian air-defense systems, knocking out the country's defensive capability and clearing the way for what followed.\n\n## How the Strike Unfolded\n\nThe cavalry arrived in two more successive waves of aircraft, flying into zones now made safe by the destruction of Iran's defenses and launching missiles deep into Iranian territory. Because Israel relied heavily on long-range missiles, not every attempted strike is thought to have evaded interception — but the country's human pilots and its valuable aircraft were kept well out of harm's way. Their targets, according to officials within Israel's defense apparatus, were facilities used to produce both long-range missiles and the cheap, unmanned kamikaze drones for which Iran has become known. The strikes were designed specifically to interrupt Iran's means of producing the very weapons it had used against Israel.\n\nThat answer was deliberate. On October 1, Iran had launched 180 ballistic missiles into Israel in a major attack, and Israel then spent more than three weeks calibrating its counterattack. While multiple elements of Iran's production chain were hit, the strikes appeared to concentrate on Chinese-made mixers used to produce solid fuel for missiles. Iran cannot replace those mixers domestically and will have to ask China to manufacture new ones from scratch — a bottleneck with strategic consequences far beyond the immediate damage.\n\n## What Was Destroyed, and What Was Spared\n\nBy the time the dust settled, Iran's leadership had drawn a veil of secrecy over the country. Still, some details are known for certain. In all, just four soldiers of the Iranian Army were killed, along with one civilian security guard; at least two of the dead had helped operate Iran's air defenses. Roughly twenty targets were struck inside Iran, in addition to the air-defense systems hit in Iraq and Syria. According to assessments by U.S. officials shared with global news outlets, Iran's missile-production capability was so thoroughly crippled that it could take at least a year, if not longer, to rebuild enough to resume production.\n\nThe deeper blow may have been to Iran's defenses. The first wave, targeting air-defense systems, is believed to have taken out most — if not all — of Iran's advanced Soviet-made S-300 surface-to-air batteries. The subtext is unmistakable: without S-300s guarding its skies, Iran can do little to stop long-range Israeli strikes whenever Israel chooses to launch them. Their location matters, too. Although the systems' effective range stretches dozens of kilometers, they sat near oil refineries, gas fields, petrochemical plants, and other energy infrastructure that Israel clearly could have struck — but didn't. Israel thereby signaled that restraint, not incapacity, stayed its hand, while explicitly leaving those sites exposed to follow-up attacks should Iran retaliate.\n\n## A Landmark in the Israel-Iran Confrontation\n\nIn the broad view, the attack was a landmark moment in the Middle East's ongoing conflict, for several reasons. It marked the first time Iran had weathered a sustained assault from a foreign enemy on its own soil since the 1980s, during the Iran-Iraq War. When the IDF acknowledged and announced the end of its strikes at six-thirty that morning, it became the first time Israel had ever openly acknowledged an attack on Iran at all. Israel did conduct a limited airstrike inside Iran the previous April, but that operation was never formally acknowledged, so by this particular measure it does not count.\n\nThe October 26 strike was the latest exchange in a back-and-forth that Iran had instigated specifically to avenge the deaths of leaders among its paramilitary proxy allies: Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas and Hassan Nasrallah of Hezbollah. And it was the strongest sign yet that the ongoing Israel-Hezbollah and Israel-Hamas wars are actively making direct exchanges between Israel and Iran more likely — not a distant hypothetical, but a tempo the region is now settling into.\n\n## The Warning and the Calibration\n\nFor most of the world, the strike was a secret until it arrived. The United States, Israel's closest ally, reportedly learned of the attacks only minutes before they began. Iran, by contrast, was given advance warning — and that warning came directly from Israel. According to reporting by Axios, Israel was specific, detailing precisely what kinds of targets it would and would not strike. In that exchange, Israel reportedly explained that any immediate Iranian retaliation would draw a far more significant second assault, especially if an Iranian response caused casualties among Israel's civilian population.\n\nIt is impossible to confirm directly, but the low reported casualty count on the Iranian side may have been a product of that warning. With ample time to clear troops from likely target zones, Iran may have ensured that strikes on normally well-staffed military installations would not claim many soldiers — diminishing the perceived impact for a domestic audience while reducing the list of reasons to pursue a counterattack.\n\nThe early warning was not the only factor making immediate retaliation less likely. For weeks, Israel had faced an intense pressure campaign from its allies, particularly the United States, to calibrate its attack carefully and avoid further escalation. After Iran's October 1 assault, many in Israel's political and defense establishment were outraged and intent on destroying high-value Iranian targets in retribution — potentially hardened nuclear-enrichment facilities, oil refineries, political or military leadership, or sites that would have produced heavy military or civilian casualties. Instead, rather than striking critical assets, laying waste to a high-visibility area, or attempting to kill Iran's supreme leader, everything about the operation indicates a strike engineered to avoid such an escalation. From the advance warning to the surgical disabling of the exact assets Iran had used — and nothing more — the attack was meant as both a warning and a voluntary act of mercy.\n\n## Iran's Dilemma and Its Muted Response\n\nEven as war raged in Lebanon and Gaza, the world fixated on Iran, trying to gauge whether it would retaliate. All signs pointed to a token response at worst. Iran's leaders found themselves in an acutely difficult position, especially after losing their best air-defense systems. Strike Israel in retaliation, and Israel would unleash a far worse attack that Iran has little means to stop. Refuse to strike back, and Iran risks alienating hardliners taught for generations to hate their great enemy — by the very people now leading Iran, and by the very people who need the hardliners' support amid a shaky economy and widespread popular discontent.\n\nForced to choose between getting kicked in the teeth by Israel or shouted down by the hardliners, Iran's leadership appears to have chosen the hardliners. In the wake of the attack, Iranian state media downplayed it as weak, ineffectual, and broadly unworthy of public concern. To keep specifics from circulating, the government threatened ten-year prison sentences for anyone who provided evidence about the airstrikes to media Iran deems hostile. Foreign outlets speaking with ordinary Iranians across Tehran broadly noted an air of relief and a hope for a return to normalcy, rather than the rage that the supreme leader may have feared. With the low casualty count, Israel ensured that Iran needed only to help a few families through personal tragedy rather than answer the kind of death toll that would register as a blow to the nation.\n\nIran's words have been more equivocal than its conduct. The Foreign Ministry declared that Iran \"considers itself entitled and obligated to defend against foreign acts of aggression\" — yet in the same statement it stressed that it \"recognizes its responsibilities towards regional peace and security.\" On the night after the strikes, Iran's own military suggested that in the event of a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, or between Israel and Hezbollah, a retaliatory strike might be off the table. For the regime to be saying as much that very night suggests it will moderate its response further over time.\n\nFor now, the Israeli strike appears to be the last major Israel-Iran exchange to expect in the near term. Perhaps Iran will mount a token response, but if so, there are plenty of ways to give the appearance of striking back while launching an attack Israel's air defenses can easily handle. Most global sources have rightly focused on the continued potential for escalation between the two nations. But at least in the short term, the verdict holds: crisis averted.\n\n## Movement on the Ground in Southern Lebanon\n\nBack at, and above, the Israeli-Lebanese border, the war between Israel and Hezbollah showed no sign of stopping. IDF troops and Hezbollah's Radwan fighters continued to battle on the ground in southern Lebanon, while Hezbollah rocket attacks and Israeli airstrikes kept volleying across the border in both directions.\n\nOver the preceding week and change, the IDF broadened its advance into southern Lebanon. The majority of the southernmost strip of the Israeli-Lebanese border was closed on the Israeli side as a designated military zone, as were the southeasterly corner of the border and a more northerly stretch where the line runs north and then turns east. In all three areas, Israel had been advancing in a limited capacity for several weeks; now the push had widened. The day-to-day pattern looks similar throughout: Israel moves inward through harsh highland terrain, boxing off small pieces of territory and taking them, while Hezbollah's fighters engage in firefights but typically retreat from hard-to-defend positions rather than holding out.\n\nTo capture the rhythm of the fighting, consider a single day — October 25 — as catalogued by the Institute for the Study of War. The IDF's 146th Division attacked about fifty Hezbollah targets, including an anti-tank emplacement, and moved through the village of Boustane, leaving destroyed buildings behind. Another infantry brigade destroyed underground Hezbollah compounds in a different village and identified a large weapons depot in a \"rugged mountainous area,\" with the materials confiscated and returned to Israel. The 98th Division destroyed a Hezbollah cell it said was about to ambush IDF soldiers, while the 91st Division called in an airstrike that killed a local Radwan commander. Hezbollah, for its part, claimed to have hit the crew of an IDF tank and targeted Israeli soldiers with guided missiles and unguided rockets in multiple areas, asserting roughly a dozen attacks against the 98th Division alone that day. This slow, grinding tempo has become normal at this stage, with the IDF's broad goal being to dismantle the infrastructure Hezbollah built to attack Israeli territory.\n\n## Notable Engagements and the Push Toward Khiam\n\nCasualty counts remain difficult to establish on either side. Like any two parties to a war, Israel and Hezbollah are each incentivized to underreport their own losses and overreport the enemy's, so any figure either side offers should be taken with caution. Still, several events from the period stand out.\n\nOn October 24, one IDF division claimed to have killed about twenty Hezbollah fighters in a single area — an unusually large firefight, explained when the IDF afterward confiscated a large stockpile of rocket launchers, mortars, and ammunition. On the 26th, the IDF used 400 tons of explosives to destroy what it described as the largest Hezbollah complex it had ever found, triggering earthquake warnings across Israel with the force of the blast; the complex was large enough to house a company of Radwan fighters and sat about five kilometers from an Israeli town of twenty thousand. On October 30, The New York Times published an analysis of satellite imagery showing that 1,085 buildings had been destroyed across six Lebanese villages since the start of Israel's ground invasion on October 1.\n\nIsraeli losses mounted as well. On October 25, the IDF announced that five soldiers, all reservists, had been killed by a rocket strike, with twenty-four wounded — the highest single-strike toll since the ground invasion began. Five more reservists were killed the following day, alongside thirteen wounded, when they were caught by surprise by three militants. As of that day, Israel counted thirty-two soldiers dead since the operation's start. On October 28, observers reported a large IDF tank column pushing several kilometers into Lebanese territory — Israel's deepest advance yet — toward the village of Khiam, a lookout point Hezbollah spotters have used to direct rocket fire across much of northern Israel. Hezbollah appears to consider Khiam worth defending, with reports of heavy anti-tank missile and mortar fire against Israeli forces engaging from all directions. It may become the costliest direct Israel-Hezbollah engagement of the current invasion.\n\n## UNIFIL, the Lebanese Army, and Journalists in the Crossfire\n\nIDF brigades and Radwan cells are not the only groups operating in southern Lebanon, and others came under Israeli fire. In one set of airstrikes, Israel killed three soldiers of the Lebanese Army — an organization at least nominally opposed to Hezbollah, and one Israel is very much not trying to fight. Those soldiers had been attempting to evacuate wounded people from an area where Israel was raiding Hezbollah. It was the fourth time Israel had killed Lebanese soldiers, whether inadvertently or deliberately.\n\nPeacekeepers with the UN Interim Force in Lebanon, or UNIFIL, reported being forced to withdraw from a watchtower after Israeli troops fired on them. UNIFIL — described by Foreign Policy as both ineffective and indispensable for peacekeeping in southern Lebanon — has operated there for years despite intense Israeli frustration. That withdrawal followed a leaked confidential report, prepared by a country that contributes troops to UNIFIL, alleging that Israel had launched at least a dozen attacks on UN troops since its ground operations began, including the use of incendiary white phosphorus near enough to a UN force that fifteen peacekeepers were injured. Israel categorically denies deliberately targeting UNIFIL; UNIFIL accuses Israel of violating international law. UNIFIL faces danger from both sides — on October 29, a suspected Hezbollah rocket attack injured eight Austrian peacekeepers — but its friction with Israel continues to dominate headlines.\n\nThe press has not been spared. On Friday, October 25, an Israeli airstrike hit a compound in southern Lebanon known to house more than a dozen journalists from multiple organizations. Three people were killed, including two camera operators and an engineer affiliated with a Hezbollah-linked media company. At least one vehicle marked PRESS was destroyed, and no warning was issued to the site.\n\n## The Air War and the Civilian Toll\n\nThe air war between Israel and Hezbollah continued without pause. On October 23, Israel carried out several airstrikes on the Lebanese port city of Tyre after expanding evacuation orders to cover neighborhoods in and around the historic center. No casualties were reported, but Lebanese state news described \"massive destruction,\" and video captured smoke rising less than half a kilometer from a UNESCO World Heritage site. Israel said the strikes hit Hezbollah's Southern Front headquarters and other targets. Tyre had largely emptied out, though it was thought to still hold about fourteen thousand displaced people.\n\nOn the 27th, Israel struck the coastal city of Sidon — a rarity to that point in the conflict, and a city that had become a magnet for the displaced seeking refuge — killing eight and wounding twenty-five. On the 29th, Israel issued an evacuation order for Baalbek, prewar population 82,000 and home to an ancient Roman temple designated as another UNESCO World Heritage site — the first such order for the city since the invasion began. Shortly afterward, Israeli strikes on several buildings there injured at least sixty people, with the Lebanese Health Ministry reporting fifty-eight wounded.\n\nMore consistent targets remained in the crosshairs. In Beirut, Israeli strikes on the 23rd targeted weapons storage and manufacturing, according to the IDF, while a pro-Hezbollah TV channel reported its bureau was struck. Days later, the Beirut neighborhood of Dahiya endured waves of intense airstrikes on the same day Israel hit a pair of Lebanon-Syria border crossings used by hundreds of thousands trying to flee. In the Jnah neighborhood on the 24th, an airstrike killed an unspecified number of people and injured at least sixty, while in one southern Lebanese home, a strike killed nineteen people — including six women, five children, and a former school principal — wiping out three generations of a single family along with the village imam. Another strike close to Lebanon's largest public hospital killed eighteen, including four children. In most of these instances, no evacuation order was ever issued. Current estimates put the total displaced in Lebanon at 1.4 million, with nearly half a million having crossed into Syria — a majority of them Syrians who had been sheltering in Lebanon after fleeing their own country's war.\n\n## Hezbollah's Rockets and the Shape of the Conflict\n\nComing in the opposite direction, Hezbollah launched continual barrages into Israel, causing occasional casualties. On October 23, Hezbollah claimed waves of rocket fire, including against the Gilot intelligence base, and strikes toward Tel Aviv that prompted aides to U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken to shelter in a safe room. Hezbollah recorded hits on multiple Israeli factories and struck the city of Karmiel, killing two and injuring at least twenty-five; two more Israelis were hurt in the coastal city of Nahariya, and another was killed in Maalot Tarshiha on October 29. In its public statements, Hezbollah has issued evacuation orders to an ever-expanding list of northern Israeli cities and towns, mirroring the IDF's practice before its own strikes. On average, Hezbollah is catalogued launching between 80 and 250 rocket attacks a day, plus a smaller number of drone attacks — but largely because of Israel's robust air defenses, its strikes carry a far lower success rate than Israel's.\n\nViewed in totality, the week offered limited reasons for optimism alongside substantial cause for concern. The concerns are obvious: both sides keep attacking at high volume, Israel keeps advancing across southern Lebanon, and the counts of displaced people and civilian casualties keep climbing. But the grounds for hope are also straightforward. As experts on the long-running Middle East conflict have noted, this stage of violence had the potential to be far worse than it has been. The fact that Israel has not yet committed the many thousands of troops it would need to take southern Lebanon outright, and the fact that Hezbollah has not mounted mass ground counterattacks against the Israeli troops already there, are surprising and positive signs. Israel and Hezbollah are unquestionably at war — but not all war is equal, and in the grand scheme, despite the destruction, this conflict has so far sat closer to the definition of a low-grade war than many expected.\n\n## Why the Confrontation Could Still Broaden\n\nYet with every step Israel takes into southern Lebanon, a broader confrontation becomes more likely, not less. At this stage, Hezbollah forces are mostly retreating rather than fighting to the death — at least most of the time. Israel is working through rugged highland areas where such retreats come easily, and where the infrastructure Hezbollah built is meant to be sacrificed if necessary. According to a recent piece by the Atlantic Council, Hezbollah may be defending its current front-line zones with as few as a few hundred fighters. The more important targets lie deeper into southern Lebanon, along with what is thought to be the bulk of Hezbollah's fighting forces.\n\nWhen the time inevitably comes for Israel to advance into those zones, it will fall to Hezbollah to decide how to respond — and that, at least from the outside, looks like the moment Hezbollah may make a more definitive stand. Validating that read, Hezbollah has begun threatening more frequent use of precision-guided ballistic missiles and anti-ship missiles, a move that would force Israel to redouble its efforts. Early indicators suggest that even if other Iranian-backed organizations do not take part directly, their fighters may still appear. Funeral notices are increasingly being issued in Yemen, where the Houthi rebel organization operates, and in Iraq, with its abundance of pro-Iran militias, mourning people who died fighting alongside Hezbollah in Lebanon. For now those groups appear to be sending only small numbers of fighters — but those numbers could grow.\n\nHezbollah also underwent a notable leadership change. On October 29, the group announced that Sheikh Naim Qassem, 71, had been elevated to its top job. Qassem served as deputy to longtime leader Hassan Nasrallah for more than three decades, until Nasrallah was killed in an Israeli airstrike in September. Hezbollah had previously elevated a different successor, Hashem Safieddine, but he lasted just a few days before he, too, was killed by Israel. Qassem is expected to act more as a coordinating force than a fire-and-brimstone patriarch, and expert assessments suggest he was not exactly a top choice — but he was chosen by a quite literal process of elimination, as few of Hezbollah's old guard remain alive. Israel has already signaled its intentions. As Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant put it in a social-media post about Qassem's ascension: \"Temporary appointment. Not for long.\"\n\n## Prospects for Peace, and the Forces Working Against It\n\nThe idea that a further Israeli advance is inevitable if the ground invasion continues is not the same as the idea that the continued invasion itself is inevitable. Peace efforts are underway around the world to bring a swift end to the conflict — though whether they will succeed is another matter.\n\nIsrael faces continual pressure from the international community, above all from its most important backer, the United States, to avoid being lured into a long engagement in Lebanon. During a trip to Qatar, Secretary of State Antony Blinken told foreign press that Washington is working on a diplomatic deal allowing displaced people on both sides of the Israel-Lebanon border to return home. In a potentially positive sign, IDF Chief of Staff Lieutenant General Herzi Halevi said in a video statement: \"In the north, there's a possibility of reaching a sharp conclusion. We thoroughly dismantled Hezbollah's senior chain of command.\" American negotiators have also kept working with Israel toward a Gaza ceasefire — with limited results at best — in an effort that could make a Lebanon peace easier if it succeeds.\n\nMoney has moved, too. On Thursday, October 24, an international conference in Paris raised more than a billion U.S. dollars, predominantly in humanitarian aid, according to France's foreign minister — including $100 million from France and $300 million from the United States. That total far exceeds the $426 million the UN has described as necessary to meet Lebanon's urgent humanitarian needs. Of the billion raised, about $200 million is expected to strengthen Lebanon's armed forces, potentially recruiting up to six thousand new troops and enabling the deployment of eight thousand others to southern Lebanon. How that money is actually spent — in a nation known for extreme corruption and failed-state status — will require a careful approach from those trying to help.\n\n## Israel's Demands and the Wider Pressures\n\nEven so, the signs do not point to an Israel ready or willing to accept movement toward a ceasefire. The context matters: Israel is contending with far more than a retaliatory strike on Iran and its fight with Hezbollah. In Gaza, Palestinians and global observers have warned that implementation of the so-called \"generals' plan\" is now underway. Proposed by a group of retired Israeli generals, the plan called for cutting off all aid to northern Gaza and tightening the siege, forcing civilians to flee or starve ahead of a phase of war in which every person remaining in northern Gaza would be assumed to be a combatant. First responders have now paused operations in northern Gaza entirely, while Israel denies running what has been called a \"surrender or starve\" campaign. The UN's leading humanitarian official, Joyce Msuya, warned that \"the entire population of north Gaza is at risk of dying.\" In one notable incident, Israeli forces besieged one of the last functioning hospitals in northern Gaza for several days before withdrawing — and took nearly all of the hospital's male staff with them.\n\nIsrael has also weathered a rising number of terror attacks on its own soil. On Sunday, October 27, one man was killed and at least thirty others injured when a truck plowed into dozens of people who had just stepped off a charter bus; the wounded were predominantly elderly people on a day trip to a museum, and the attacker, an Arab Israeli, was shot dead at the scene.\n\nIsrael's pro-ceasefire protest movement remains active as well. On the 27th, protesters disrupted a speech by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu commemorating the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack, demanding a halt to the fighting. But in a country where even peacetime protests rarely sway Netanyahu or his political allies, the current push — from Israeli advocates and foreigners alike — appears no more likely to succeed. In Gaza, Israel has routinely stonewalled, made false promises to its allies, and refused to compromise when a ceasefire might have been reached, and early indicators suggest its Lebanon approach will be similar.\n\n## The Draft Ceasefire and the Long List of Obstacles\n\nIn conversations revealed to Axios by both U.S. and Israeli officials, Israel has presented Washington with a series of Lebanon ceasefire demands that would be very hard for the rest of the world to meet. Among them: that Israel be allowed to actively enforce anti-Hezbollah rules inside southern Lebanon, operating within the country to ensure the group does not re-arm or reconsolidate, and that the Israeli air force be free to operate over Lebanese airspace. Both demands would constitute fundamental violations of Lebanese sovereignty — conditions neither Lebanon nor the international community would be likely to support.\n\nNot every sign points to escalation, however. As of October 29, there were genuine efforts to set terms for a ceasefire. The current draft would establish a sixty-day acclimation period — a temporary ceasefire giving mediators time to set up a mechanism to supervise southern Lebanon and prevent Hezbollah from rebuilding there. The IDF would withdraw from most of southern Lebanon, while the Lebanese Armed Forces would deploy thousands of troops to the south, supported by a rapid influx of French, German, and British forces.\n\nThe problem is that neither Hezbollah nor the leaders of Israel's government has endorsed the plan, and with so many moving parts, it inherently carries numerous points of failure. Israel's government would have to abandon its expectation of active enforcement and its hopes for free operation in Lebanese airspace. Hezbollah would have to consent to Lebanese and international occupation of its key territory. Lebanon would have to figure out how to surge troops, and the other international parties would have to put large numbers of their own personnel in harm's way. A first-draft proposal is not nothing — but its long list of prerequisites, set against the enduring failure to reach a ceasefire in Gaza, suggests trouble almost certainly lies ahead.\n\n## The American Election and the Road Ahead\n\nThere is one more reason a deal is unlikely soon: Israel is improbable to enter any serious negotiation before its critical ally finishes a contentious election cycle, culminating in America's presidential and congressional elections on Tuesday, November 5. Netanyahu has been overt in his preference for a Donald Trump presidency over a Kamala Harris one, and will almost certainly wait for both a president-elect and a new balance in the U.S. House and Senate before discussing ceasefire terms. Should Trump win, Netanyahu may prove entirely unwilling to engage with the incumbent Biden administration for the rest of its term, pushing any hope of a ceasefire out to January 20 — when a candidate with no history of serious ceasefire advocacy would take office.\n\nWarFronts would be glad to be surprised in the coming weeks by an attempt to negotiate a real, lasting peace that allows displaced people to return home and saves the thousands of lives that would otherwise be lost. But while current indicators do not point to all-out war between Israel and Iran, or between Israel and Hezbollah, they do not point to a ceasefire either. For now, the slow march across southern Lebanon is likely to continue on pace, and so is the slow march to the brink between Iran and Israel. When this rhythm is interrupted, it tends to be because, all of a sudden, things start moving very fast.\n\n## Frequently Asked Questions\n\n### What was Operation Days of Repentance?\n\nIt was the name Israel gave to its October 26, 2024, retaliatory strike on Iran. More than 100 Israeli combat aircraft — including F-15s, F-16s, drones, and stealth F-35 \"Adir\" jets — launched after midnight, crossed multiple national borders, and struck roughly twenty targets across three Iranian provinces in successive waves between about 2:15 a.m. and dawn.\n\n### How much damage did the strike actually do?\n\nIt targeted Iran's missile-production capacity, including hard-to-replace Chinese-made solid-fuel mixers, and U.S. assessments suggested it could take Iran at least a year to resume production. The first wave also destroyed most or all of Iran's advanced Soviet-made S-300 air-defense batteries, leaving Iran's airspace badly exposed — and within range of future Israeli strikes on energy infrastructure that was deliberately spared.\n\n### Why were Iranian casualties so low, and how did Iran respond?\n\nIsrael gave Iran advance warning detailing what it would and would not hit, likely letting Iran clear troops from target zones. Iranian state media downplayed the strike, and Iran's military hinted that retaliation could be off the table if a Gaza or Lebanon ceasefire is reached — suggesting the regime chose to absorb the blow rather than risk a far heavier Israeli follow-up.\n\n### What is happening on the ground in southern Lebanon?\n\nThe IDF broadened a limited advance through harsh highland terrain, boxing off territory while Hezbollah's Radwan fighters mostly retreat from hard-to-hold positions. Israel's deepest push was a tank column driving toward Khiam, a hilltop Hezbollah uses to direct rocket fire across northern Israel. As of October 30, Israel had lost thirty-two soldiers since the October 1 ground invasion began.\n\n### Who is Naim Qassem and what does his appointment signal?\n\nQassem, 71, was named Hezbollah's new leader on October 29 after serving as deputy to Hassan Nasrallah for more than three decades. He succeeded a brief interim successor, Hashem Safieddine, who was also killed by Israel. Analysts expect him to act more as a coordinator than a charismatic leader; Israel's defense minister publicly called the appointment \"temporary.\"\n\n## Sources\n\n1. https://apnews.com/article/israel-palestinians-hamas-war-lebanon-hezbollah-iran-news-10-26-2024-9c9f366c71c508e6dd0ee74cff8400d2\n2. https://apnews.com/article/israel-palestinians-hamas-war-lebanon-hezbollah-iran-news-10-25-2024-0920f63542d158ad5999c481e421da00\n3. https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/explosions-heard-iran-syria-middle-east-braces-israeli-retaliation-2024-10-25/\n4. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/oct/27/israel-strikes-iran-air-defence-systems-energy-sites\n5. https://www.npr.org/2024/10/25/nx-s1-5165574/israel-iran-airstrikes-tehran\n6. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-68811276\n7. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c704w7d3997o\n8. https://www.axios.com/2024/10/26/israel-strike-iran-missile-production\n9. https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/10/27/world/israel-iran-lebanon-gaza\n10. https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/how-israel-pulled-off-its-largest-ever-strike-on-iran-689022ca\n11. https://apnews.com/article/iran-israel-attack-satellite-photos-gaza-lebanon-wars-0c6ee6a8544268612cb7d49727d8449d\n12. https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/satellite-photos-show-israel-hit-iran-missile-fuel-mixing-facilities-researchers-2024-10-26/\n13. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/iran-says-right-self-defense-israel-attack-us-urges-end-missile-exchan-rcna177414\n14. https://apnews.com/article/iran-israel-war-attack-retaliation-analysis-80a619146abd4f8aee2a7776a8f134d1\n15. https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/10/26/world/israel-iran-lebanon-gaza\n16. https://www.bbc.com/news/live/cn4v67j88e0t\n17. https://www.cnn.com/world/live-news/israel-iran-strikes-lebanon-gaza-war-10-26-24/index.html\n18. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/israel-strikes-iran-reaction-world-leaders/\n19. https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/10/25/world/israel-lebanon-gaza-iran\n20. https://www.france24.com/en/middle-east/20241026-live-israeli-airstrike-on-tehran-caused-minimal-damage-iran-says\n21. https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/iran-live-updates-explosions-heard-around-tehran-2024-10-25/\n22. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/israel-iran-attack-tehran-response-retaliate-hezbollah-latest-b2636381.html\n23. https://time.com/7099052/israel-attacks-iran-pre-dawn-airstrikes-targeting-military-infrastructure/\n24. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cgr0yvrx4qpo\n25. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/26/world/middleeast/irans-state-media-plays-down-israeli-attacks.html\n26. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/10/26/iran-threatens-citizens-israel-strikes-video/\n27. https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/israeli-strikes-on-iran-expose-gap-in-prowess-between-two-arch-foes-aded7cf8\n28. https://www.axios.com/2024/10/26/israel-iran-attack-warning\n29. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/25/world/middleeast/israel-soldiers-killed-hezbollah-lebanon.html\n30. https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israeli-military-says-five-soldiers-were-killed-during-combat-southern-lebanon-2024-10-24/\n31. https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-10-27/ty-article/four-israeli-soldiers-killed-in-southern-lebanon-combat-idf-announces/00000192-cd2c-d628-a9df-fdfef9ec0000\n32. https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/iran-update-october-25-2024\n33. https://www.economist.com/interactive/middle-east-and-africa/israel-lebanon-hizbullah-iran-war-strikes-map-tracker\n34. https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israel-intensifies-offensive-gaza-lebanon-after-hamas-leaders-death-2024-10-20/\n35. https://understandingwar.org/backgrounder/iran-update-october-24-2024\n36. https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/iran-update-october-26-2024\n37. https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/iran-update-october-23-2024\n38. https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/iran-update-october-22-2024\n39. https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/iran-update-october-21-2024\n40. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/24/world/middleeast/israel-strikes-southern-lebanon.html\n41. https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/peacekeepers-withdrew-post-zahajra-south-lebanon-under-israeli-fire-2024-10-25/\n42. https://www.ft.com/content/151eb482-6415-48a8-bf3f-baed00018c4e\n43. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5y387ne93po\n44. https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2024-10-23/israeli-strikes-pound-lebanese-coastal-city-after-residents-evacuate\n45. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/27/world/middleeast/israeli-strike-sidon-lebanon.html\n46. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/israel-war-iran-hamas-gaza-hezbollah-journalists-killed-lebanon-kamal-adwan-hospital/\n47. https://apnews.com/article/journalists-killed-lebanon-israel-c89cf1109daaf3e6e7b766584710234d\n48. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cpvz2rzm4k0o\n49. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/25/world/middleeast/israel-strikes-gaza-lebanon.html\n50. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/crr9l4l0xx4o\n51. https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2024-10-25/as-israeli-airstrikes-destroy-cities-in-lebanon-some-see-echoes-of-gaza\n52. https://apnews.com/article/israel-hamas-hezbollah-mideast-latest-25-october-2024-6ef9066c9ff9f2d0518e281f3e622df4\n53. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/lebanese-healthcare-workers-caught-in-the-line-of-fire-from-israeli-airstrikes\n54. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cdxy621qn4eo\n55. https://www.npr.org/2024/10/21/nx-s1-5159600/israel-strikes-hezbollah-banks-al-qard-al-hassan\n56. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c93p3g1v1z4o\n57. https://www.cbsnews.com/video/israeli-forces-attack-targets-around-beirut-while-hezbollah-fires-rockets-into-israel/\n58. https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/menasource/israel-hezbollah-not-full-scale-war/\n59. https://foreignpolicy.com/2024/10/25/where-is-massive-hezbollah-response-to-israels-attacks/\n60. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/israel-leaves-trail-destruction-dayslong-siege-one-gazas-last-hospital-rcna177474\n61. https://abcnews.go.com/International/live-updates/israel-gaza-lebanon-live-updates-idf-targeting-hezbollah/?id=114980385\n62. https://news.un.org/en/story/2024/10/1156171\n63. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/oct/26/israel-generals-plan-clear-north-gaza-palestinians\n64. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cdj33rwlyepo\n65. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/truck-slams-bus-stop-near-glilot-military-base-tel-aviv-israel-rcna177476\n66. https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/truck-hits-crowd-at-israel-bus-stop-injuring-dozens-0e9c69c4\n67. https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/protesters-israel-disrupt-prime-minister-benjamin-netanyahus-speech-115190861\n68. https://apnews.com/article/middle-east-lebanon-conference-paris-humanitarian-aid-30a97f88d2ec8dc138385d18a31dbb69\n69. https://www.axios.com/2024/10/21/israel-us-lebanon-end-war-conditions\n70. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/oct/25/israel-lebanon-strikes-beirut-us-ceasefire\n71. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/10/25/trump-netanyahu-support-gaza-lebanon/\n72. https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/netanyahu-told-trump-israel-will-make-decisions-based-its-interests-his-office-2024-10-20/\n73. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/03/opinion/netanyahu-trump-harris.html\n74. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/satellite-images-show-damage-iran-military-sites-israel-attack-rcna177552\n75. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/27/us/politics/iran-israel-strikes-tehran.html\n76. https://www.dw.com/en/syria-dictator-bashar-assad-caught-between-iran-israel-conflict-middle-east/a-70632310\n77. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/30/world/middleeast/israel-lebanon-border-photos-video.html\n78. https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/hezbollah-elects-naim-qassem-succeed-slain-head-nasrallah-2024-10-29/\n79. https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/29/middleeast/naim-qassem-new-hezbollah-leader-israel-war-intl/index.html\n80. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c89vx50g4l5o\n81. https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/middle-east-latest-dozens-killed-wounded-israeli-strike-115250589\n82. https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/iran-update-october-27-2024-0\n83. https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/iran-update-october-28-2024\n84. https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/iran-update-october-29-2024\n85. https://www.reuters.com/world/senior-biden-advisers-visit-israel-try-end-war-lebanon-axios-reports-2024-10-30/\n86. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/biden-officials-israel-lebanon-cease-fire-hezbollah-gaza-rcna177977\n\n" url: https://warfronts.pub/article/israel-strike-iran-shock-and-awe-lebanon-part-v.md canonical: https://warfronts.pub/article/israel-strike-iran-shock-and-awe-lebanon-part-v datePublished: 2026-06-02 dateModified: 2026-06-02 author: - name: Simon Whistler url: https://warfronts.pub/author/simon-whistler publisher: Warfronts image: "https://media.warfronts.pub/cdn-cgi/image/width=1600,height=900,fit=cover,quality=80,format=auto/articles/eHZ7b68LR7U/hero.jpg" type: NewsArticle contentHash: 753ae185c1c64bff94208ce96ceda9cd0f6abfa0f3a5ab994eb017eba68d7ea7 tokens: 11019 summaryUrl: https://warfronts.pub/article/israel-strike-iran-shock-and-awe-lebanon-part-v.md.summary.md --- The war in Lebanon is no longer a war in Lebanon. After nearly a month of Israeli military operations on Lebanese soil, and after nearly two months of sustained, intense hostilities between Israel and the militant terror group Hezbollah, the boundaries of the Lebanese nation are no longer enough to contain the fighting. Israeli missiles have come crashing down across Iran. Hezbollah is wounded but bitterly resolved to keep fighting. And around the wider Middle East, warning signs indicate that the worst may still lie ahead. This installment of WarFronts' continuing coverage of the conflict examines Israel's wave of attacks against Iranian sovereign territory, the state of affairs in Lebanon — both on the ground, where Israeli and Hezbollah forces battle through the highlands, and in the sky, where each side tries to wreak havoc on the other — and both the fleeting prospects that remain for peace and the deeply troubling signals pointing in the opposite direction. This is Shock and Awe in Lebanon, Part Five. What follows is current as of the end of the day, Israel-Lebanon time, on Wednesday, October 30, 2024; events after that date are not reflected here. The central thesis is straightforward and uncomfortable: even as Israel's strike on Iran was engineered to punish without igniting a wider war, every measured step it takes deeper into Lebanon makes that wider war more likely, not less. ## Key Takeaways - In the early hours of October 26, 2024, Israel struck roughly twenty targets across Iran in Operation Days of Repentance — the first time Israel ever openly acknowledged an attack on Iranian soil. - More than 100 Israeli aircraft, including stealth F-35 "Adir" jets, first neutralized air-defense batteries in Syria and Iraq, then destroyed most or all of Iran's advanced S-300 surface-to-air systems, leaving Iran's skies badly exposed. - The strike was tightly calibrated: it targeted Iran's missile-production capacity, including hard-to-replace Chinese-made solid-fuel mixers, while deliberately sparing nuclear, energy, and leadership sites — signaling restraint, not incapacity. - Iran chose to downplay the strike and hinted that retaliation could be waived if a Gaza or Lebanon ceasefire materialized, suggesting it cannot afford a heavier Israeli follow-up. - On the ground, the IDF deepened its advance into southern Lebanon toward Khiam while Hezbollah named Naim Qassem its new leader, and a U.S. election loomed over any real prospect of a ceasefire. ## The Grand Retaliation In the early hours of October 26, 2024, Iran came under attack. In the capital, Tehran, explosions thundered through the streets at roughly 2:15 a.m. local time, shattering windows and waking countless Iranians from their sleep. There, and in two other provinces, missiles struck approximately twenty targets in a series of airstrikes that arrived in waves rather than all at once. The barrage lasted more than three hours, until dawn, after which silence settled over the city until about half-past six that morning. At that point the Israel Defense Forces — three national borders away — made an announcement: their strikes on Iran had officially concluded. From the Israeli side, the operation looked different. Not long after midnight on Saturday morning, more than a hundred combat aircraft took off from airstrips inside Israel for an action dubbed Operation Days of Repentance. The force included American-made F-15 and F-16 fighter jets, unmanned drones, and stealthy fifth-generation F-35 Lightnings, known in Israel as the Adir. To reach Iran on the most direct path, the aircraft would have to cross either Jordanian or Syrian territory and then Iraq — and to do it effectively, they had to maintain a stealthy approach. On their way in, the first wave targeted and destroyed air-defense batteries in both Syria and Iraq, preventing the pro-Iran governments of either nation from acting and denying Iran any early-warning signal before the jets arrived. Once they reached the edge of Iranian airspace, that first wave conducted precision strikes against Iranian air-defense systems, knocking out the country's defensive capability and clearing the way for what followed. ## How the Strike Unfolded The cavalry arrived in two more successive waves of aircraft, flying into zones now made safe by the destruction of Iran's defenses and launching missiles deep into Iranian territory. Because Israel relied heavily on long-range missiles, not every attempted strike is thought to have evaded interception — but the country's human pilots and its valuable aircraft were kept well out of harm's way. Their targets, according to officials within Israel's defense apparatus, were facilities used to produce both long-range missiles and the cheap, unmanned kamikaze drones for which Iran has become known. The strikes were designed specifically to interrupt Iran's means of producing the very weapons it had used against Israel. That answer was deliberate. On October 1, Iran had launched 180 ballistic missiles into Israel in a major attack, and Israel then spent more than three weeks calibrating its counterattack. While multiple elements of Iran's production chain were hit, the strikes appeared to concentrate on Chinese-made mixers used to produce solid fuel for missiles. Iran cannot replace those mixers domestically and will have to ask China to manufacture new ones from scratch — a bottleneck with strategic consequences far beyond the immediate damage. ## What Was Destroyed, and What Was Spared By the time the dust settled, Iran's leadership had drawn a veil of secrecy over the country. Still, some details are known for certain. In all, just four soldiers of the Iranian Army were killed, along with one civilian security guard; at least two of the dead had helped operate Iran's air defenses. Roughly twenty targets were struck inside Iran, in addition to the air-defense systems hit in Iraq and Syria. According to assessments by U.S. officials shared with global news outlets, Iran's missile-production capability was so thoroughly crippled that it could take at least a year, if not longer, to rebuild enough to resume production. The deeper blow may have been to Iran's defenses. The first wave, targeting air-defense systems, is believed to have taken out most — if not all — of Iran's advanced Soviet-made S-300 surface-to-air batteries. The subtext is unmistakable: without S-300s guarding its skies, Iran can do little to stop long-range Israeli strikes whenever Israel chooses to launch them. Their location matters, too. Although the systems' effective range stretches dozens of kilometers, they sat near oil refineries, gas fields, petrochemical plants, and other energy infrastructure that Israel clearly could have struck — but didn't. Israel thereby signaled that restraint, not incapacity, stayed its hand, while explicitly leaving those sites exposed to follow-up attacks should Iran retaliate. ## A Landmark in the Israel-Iran Confrontation In the broad view, the attack was a landmark moment in the Middle East's ongoing conflict, for several reasons. It marked the first time Iran had weathered a sustained assault from a foreign enemy on its own soil since the 1980s, during the Iran-Iraq War. When the IDF acknowledged and announced the end of its strikes at six-thirty that morning, it became the first time Israel had ever openly acknowledged an attack on Iran at all. Israel did conduct a limited airstrike inside Iran the previous April, but that operation was never formally acknowledged, so by this particular measure it does not count. The October 26 strike was the latest exchange in a back-and-forth that Iran had instigated specifically to avenge the deaths of leaders among its paramilitary proxy allies: Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas and Hassan Nasrallah of Hezbollah. And it was the strongest sign yet that the ongoing Israel-Hezbollah and Israel-Hamas wars are actively making direct exchanges between Israel and Iran more likely — not a distant hypothetical, but a tempo the region is now settling into. ## The Warning and the Calibration For most of the world, the strike was a secret until it arrived. The United States, Israel's closest ally, reportedly learned of the attacks only minutes before they began. Iran, by contrast, was given advance warning — and that warning came directly from Israel. According to reporting by Axios, Israel was specific, detailing precisely what kinds of targets it would and would not strike. In that exchange, Israel reportedly explained that any immediate Iranian retaliation would draw a far more significant second assault, especially if an Iranian response caused casualties among Israel's civilian population. It is impossible to confirm directly, but the low reported casualty count on the Iranian side may have been a product of that warning. With ample time to clear troops from likely target zones, Iran may have ensured that strikes on normally well-staffed military installations would not claim many soldiers — diminishing the perceived impact for a domestic audience while reducing the list of reasons to pursue a counterattack. The early warning was not the only factor making immediate retaliation less likely. For weeks, Israel had faced an intense pressure campaign from its allies, particularly the United States, to calibrate its attack carefully and avoid further escalation. After Iran's October 1 assault, many in Israel's political and defense establishment were outraged and intent on destroying high-value Iranian targets in retribution — potentially hardened nuclear-enrichment facilities, oil refineries, political or military leadership, or sites that would have produced heavy military or civilian casualties. Instead, rather than striking critical assets, laying waste to a high-visibility area, or attempting to kill Iran's supreme leader, everything about the operation indicates a strike engineered to avoid such an escalation. From the advance warning to the surgical disabling of the exact assets Iran had used — and nothing more — the attack was meant as both a warning and a voluntary act of mercy. ## Iran's Dilemma and Its Muted Response Even as war raged in Lebanon and Gaza, the world fixated on Iran, trying to gauge whether it would retaliate. All signs pointed to a token response at worst. Iran's leaders found themselves in an acutely difficult position, especially after losing their best air-defense systems. Strike Israel in retaliation, and Israel would unleash a far worse attack that Iran has little means to stop. Refuse to strike back, and Iran risks alienating hardliners taught for generations to hate their great enemy — by the very people now leading Iran, and by the very people who need the hardliners' support amid a shaky economy and widespread popular discontent. Forced to choose between getting kicked in the teeth by Israel or shouted down by the hardliners, Iran's leadership appears to have chosen the hardliners. In the wake of the attack, Iranian state media downplayed it as weak, ineffectual, and broadly unworthy of public concern. To keep specifics from circulating, the government threatened ten-year prison sentences for anyone who provided evidence about the airstrikes to media Iran deems hostile. Foreign outlets speaking with ordinary Iranians across Tehran broadly noted an air of relief and a hope for a return to normalcy, rather than the rage that the supreme leader may have feared. With the low casualty count, Israel ensured that Iran needed only to help a few families through personal tragedy rather than answer the kind of death toll that would register as a blow to the nation. Iran's words have been more equivocal than its conduct. The Foreign Ministry declared that Iran "considers itself entitled and obligated to defend against foreign acts of aggression" — yet in the same statement it stressed that it "recognizes its responsibilities towards regional peace and security." On the night after the strikes, Iran's own military suggested that in the event of a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, or between Israel and Hezbollah, a retaliatory strike might be off the table. For the regime to be saying as much that very night suggests it will moderate its response further over time. For now, the Israeli strike appears to be the last major Israel-Iran exchange to expect in the near term. Perhaps Iran will mount a token response, but if so, there are plenty of ways to give the appearance of striking back while launching an attack Israel's air defenses can easily handle. Most global sources have rightly focused on the continued potential for escalation between the two nations. But at least in the short term, the verdict holds: crisis averted. ## Movement on the Ground in Southern Lebanon Back at, and above, the Israeli-Lebanese border, the war between Israel and Hezbollah showed no sign of stopping. IDF troops and Hezbollah's Radwan fighters continued to battle on the ground in southern Lebanon, while Hezbollah rocket attacks and Israeli airstrikes kept volleying across the border in both directions. Over the preceding week and change, the IDF broadened its advance into southern Lebanon. The majority of the southernmost strip of the Israeli-Lebanese border was closed on the Israeli side as a designated military zone, as were the southeasterly corner of the border and a more northerly stretch where the line runs north and then turns east. In all three areas, Israel had been advancing in a limited capacity for several weeks; now the push had widened. The day-to-day pattern looks similar throughout: Israel moves inward through harsh highland terrain, boxing off small pieces of territory and taking them, while Hezbollah's fighters engage in firefights but typically retreat from hard-to-defend positions rather than holding out. To capture the rhythm of the fighting, consider a single day — October 25 — as catalogued by the Institute for the Study of War. The IDF's 146th Division attacked about fifty Hezbollah targets, including an anti-tank emplacement, and moved through the village of Boustane, leaving destroyed buildings behind. Another infantry brigade destroyed underground Hezbollah compounds in a different village and identified a large weapons depot in a "rugged mountainous area," with the materials confiscated and returned to Israel. The 98th Division destroyed a Hezbollah cell it said was about to ambush IDF soldiers, while the 91st Division called in an airstrike that killed a local Radwan commander. Hezbollah, for its part, claimed to have hit the crew of an IDF tank and targeted Israeli soldiers with guided missiles and unguided rockets in multiple areas, asserting roughly a dozen attacks against the 98th Division alone that day. This slow, grinding tempo has become normal at this stage, with the IDF's broad goal being to dismantle the infrastructure Hezbollah built to attack Israeli territory. ## Notable Engagements and the Push Toward Khiam Casualty counts remain difficult to establish on either side. Like any two parties to a war, Israel and Hezbollah are each incentivized to underreport their own losses and overreport the enemy's, so any figure either side offers should be taken with caution. Still, several events from the period stand out. On October 24, one IDF division claimed to have killed about twenty Hezbollah fighters in a single area — an unusually large firefight, explained when the IDF afterward confiscated a large stockpile of rocket launchers, mortars, and ammunition. On the 26th, the IDF used 400 tons of explosives to destroy what it described as the largest Hezbollah complex it had ever found, triggering earthquake warnings across Israel with the force of the blast; the complex was large enough to house a company of Radwan fighters and sat about five kilometers from an Israeli town of twenty thousand. On October 30, The New York Times published an analysis of satellite imagery showing that 1,085 buildings had been destroyed across six Lebanese villages since the start of Israel's ground invasion on October 1. Israeli losses mounted as well. On October 25, the IDF announced that five soldiers, all reservists, had been killed by a rocket strike, with twenty-four wounded — the highest single-strike toll since the ground invasion began. Five more reservists were killed the following day, alongside thirteen wounded, when they were caught by surprise by three militants. As of that day, Israel counted thirty-two soldiers dead since the operation's start. On October 28, observers reported a large IDF tank column pushing several kilometers into Lebanese territory — Israel's deepest advance yet — toward the village of Khiam, a lookout point Hezbollah spotters have used to direct rocket fire across much of northern Israel. Hezbollah appears to consider Khiam worth defending, with reports of heavy anti-tank missile and mortar fire against Israeli forces engaging from all directions. It may become the costliest direct Israel-Hezbollah engagement of the current invasion. ## UNIFIL, the Lebanese Army, and Journalists in the Crossfire IDF brigades and Radwan cells are not the only groups operating in southern Lebanon, and others came under Israeli fire. In one set of airstrikes, Israel killed three soldiers of the Lebanese Army — an organization at least nominally opposed to Hezbollah, and one Israel is very much not trying to fight. Those soldiers had been attempting to evacuate wounded people from an area where Israel was raiding Hezbollah. It was the fourth time Israel had killed Lebanese soldiers, whether inadvertently or deliberately. Peacekeepers with the UN Interim Force in Lebanon, or UNIFIL, reported being forced to withdraw from a watchtower after Israeli troops fired on them. UNIFIL — described by Foreign Policy as both ineffective and indispensable for peacekeeping in southern Lebanon — has operated there for years despite intense Israeli frustration. That withdrawal followed a leaked confidential report, prepared by a country that contributes troops to UNIFIL, alleging that Israel had launched at least a dozen attacks on UN troops since its ground operations began, including the use of incendiary white phosphorus near enough to a UN force that fifteen peacekeepers were injured. Israel categorically denies deliberately targeting UNIFIL; UNIFIL accuses Israel of violating international law. UNIFIL faces danger from both sides — on October 29, a suspected Hezbollah rocket attack injured eight Austrian peacekeepers — but its friction with Israel continues to dominate headlines. The press has not been spared. On Friday, October 25, an Israeli airstrike hit a compound in southern Lebanon known to house more than a dozen journalists from multiple organizations. Three people were killed, including two camera operators and an engineer affiliated with a Hezbollah-linked media company. At least one vehicle marked PRESS was destroyed, and no warning was issued to the site. ## The Air War and the Civilian Toll The air war between Israel and Hezbollah continued without pause. On October 23, Israel carried out several airstrikes on the Lebanese port city of Tyre after expanding evacuation orders to cover neighborhoods in and around the historic center. No casualties were reported, but Lebanese state news described "massive destruction," and video captured smoke rising less than half a kilometer from a UNESCO World Heritage site. Israel said the strikes hit Hezbollah's Southern Front headquarters and other targets. Tyre had largely emptied out, though it was thought to still hold about fourteen thousand displaced people. On the 27th, Israel struck the coastal city of Sidon — a rarity to that point in the conflict, and a city that had become a magnet for the displaced seeking refuge — killing eight and wounding twenty-five. On the 29th, Israel issued an evacuation order for Baalbek, prewar population 82,000 and home to an ancient Roman temple designated as another UNESCO World Heritage site — the first such order for the city since the invasion began. Shortly afterward, Israeli strikes on several buildings there injured at least sixty people, with the Lebanese Health Ministry reporting fifty-eight wounded. More consistent targets remained in the crosshairs. In Beirut, Israeli strikes on the 23rd targeted weapons storage and manufacturing, according to the IDF, while a pro-Hezbollah TV channel reported its bureau was struck. Days later, the Beirut neighborhood of Dahiya endured waves of intense airstrikes on the same day Israel hit a pair of Lebanon-Syria border crossings used by hundreds of thousands trying to flee. In the Jnah neighborhood on the 24th, an airstrike killed an unspecified number of people and injured at least sixty, while in one southern Lebanese home, a strike killed nineteen people — including six women, five children, and a former school principal — wiping out three generations of a single family along with the village imam. Another strike close to Lebanon's largest public hospital killed eighteen, including four children. In most of these instances, no evacuation order was ever issued. Current estimates put the total displaced in Lebanon at 1.4 million, with nearly half a million having crossed into Syria — a majority of them Syrians who had been sheltering in Lebanon after fleeing their own country's war. ## Hezbollah's Rockets and the Shape of the Conflict Coming in the opposite direction, Hezbollah launched continual barrages into Israel, causing occasional casualties. On October 23, Hezbollah claimed waves of rocket fire, including against the Gilot intelligence base, and strikes toward Tel Aviv that prompted aides to U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken to shelter in a safe room. Hezbollah recorded hits on multiple Israeli factories and struck the city of Karmiel, killing two and injuring at least twenty-five; two more Israelis were hurt in the coastal city of Nahariya, and another was killed in Maalot Tarshiha on October 29. In its public statements, Hezbollah has issued evacuation orders to an ever-expanding list of northern Israeli cities and towns, mirroring the IDF's practice before its own strikes. On average, Hezbollah is catalogued launching between 80 and 250 rocket attacks a day, plus a smaller number of drone attacks — but largely because of Israel's robust air defenses, its strikes carry a far lower success rate than Israel's. Viewed in totality, the week offered limited reasons for optimism alongside substantial cause for concern. The concerns are obvious: both sides keep attacking at high volume, Israel keeps advancing across southern Lebanon, and the counts of displaced people and civilian casualties keep climbing. But the grounds for hope are also straightforward. As experts on the long-running Middle East conflict have noted, this stage of violence had the potential to be far worse than it has been. The fact that Israel has not yet committed the many thousands of troops it would need to take southern Lebanon outright, and the fact that Hezbollah has not mounted mass ground counterattacks against the Israeli troops already there, are surprising and positive signs. Israel and Hezbollah are unquestionably at war — but not all war is equal, and in the grand scheme, despite the destruction, this conflict has so far sat closer to the definition of a low-grade war than many expected. ## Why the Confrontation Could Still Broaden Yet with every step Israel takes into southern Lebanon, a broader confrontation becomes more likely, not less. At this stage, Hezbollah forces are mostly retreating rather than fighting to the death — at least most of the time. Israel is working through rugged highland areas where such retreats come easily, and where the infrastructure Hezbollah built is meant to be sacrificed if necessary. According to a recent piece by the Atlantic Council, Hezbollah may be defending its current front-line zones with as few as a few hundred fighters. The more important targets lie deeper into southern Lebanon, along with what is thought to be the bulk of Hezbollah's fighting forces. When the time inevitably comes for Israel to advance into those zones, it will fall to Hezbollah to decide how to respond — and that, at least from the outside, looks like the moment Hezbollah may make a more definitive stand. Validating that read, Hezbollah has begun threatening more frequent use of precision-guided ballistic missiles and anti-ship missiles, a move that would force Israel to redouble its efforts. Early indicators suggest that even if other Iranian-backed organizations do not take part directly, their fighters may still appear. Funeral notices are increasingly being issued in Yemen, where the Houthi rebel organization operates, and in Iraq, with its abundance of pro-Iran militias, mourning people who died fighting alongside Hezbollah in Lebanon. For now those groups appear to be sending only small numbers of fighters — but those numbers could grow. Hezbollah also underwent a notable leadership change. On October 29, the group announced that Sheikh Naim Qassem, 71, had been elevated to its top job. Qassem served as deputy to longtime leader Hassan Nasrallah for more than three decades, until Nasrallah was killed in an Israeli airstrike in September. Hezbollah had previously elevated a different successor, Hashem Safieddine, but he lasted just a few days before he, too, was killed by Israel. Qassem is expected to act more as a coordinating force than a fire-and-brimstone patriarch, and expert assessments suggest he was not exactly a top choice — but he was chosen by a quite literal process of elimination, as few of Hezbollah's old guard remain alive. Israel has already signaled its intentions. As Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant put it in a social-media post about Qassem's ascension: "Temporary appointment. Not for long." ## Prospects for Peace, and the Forces Working Against It The idea that a further Israeli advance is inevitable if the ground invasion continues is not the same as the idea that the continued invasion itself is inevitable. Peace efforts are underway around the world to bring a swift end to the conflict — though whether they will succeed is another matter. Israel faces continual pressure from the international community, above all from its most important backer, the United States, to avoid being lured into a long engagement in Lebanon. During a trip to Qatar, Secretary of State Antony Blinken told foreign press that Washington is working on a diplomatic deal allowing displaced people on both sides of the Israel-Lebanon border to return home. In a potentially positive sign, IDF Chief of Staff Lieutenant General Herzi Halevi said in a video statement: "In the north, there's a possibility of reaching a sharp conclusion. We thoroughly dismantled Hezbollah's senior chain of command." American negotiators have also kept working with Israel toward a Gaza ceasefire — with limited results at best — in an effort that could make a Lebanon peace easier if it succeeds. Money has moved, too. On Thursday, October 24, an international conference in Paris raised more than a billion U.S. dollars, predominantly in humanitarian aid, according to France's foreign minister — including $100 million from France and $300 million from the United States. That total far exceeds the $426 million the UN has described as necessary to meet Lebanon's urgent humanitarian needs. Of the billion raised, about $200 million is expected to strengthen Lebanon's armed forces, potentially recruiting up to six thousand new troops and enabling the deployment of eight thousand others to southern Lebanon. How that money is actually spent — in a nation known for extreme corruption and failed-state status — will require a careful approach from those trying to help. ## Israel's Demands and the Wider Pressures Even so, the signs do not point to an Israel ready or willing to accept movement toward a ceasefire. The context matters: Israel is contending with far more than a retaliatory strike on Iran and its fight with Hezbollah. In Gaza, Palestinians and global observers have warned that implementation of the so-called "generals' plan" is now underway. Proposed by a group of retired Israeli generals, the plan called for cutting off all aid to northern Gaza and tightening the siege, forcing civilians to flee or starve ahead of a phase of war in which every person remaining in northern Gaza would be assumed to be a combatant. First responders have now paused operations in northern Gaza entirely, while Israel denies running what has been called a "surrender or starve" campaign. The UN's leading humanitarian official, Joyce Msuya, warned that "the entire population of north Gaza is at risk of dying." In one notable incident, Israeli forces besieged one of the last functioning hospitals in northern Gaza for several days before withdrawing — and took nearly all of the hospital's male staff with them. Israel has also weathered a rising number of terror attacks on its own soil. On Sunday, October 27, one man was killed and at least thirty others injured when a truck plowed into dozens of people who had just stepped off a charter bus; the wounded were predominantly elderly people on a day trip to a museum, and the attacker, an Arab Israeli, was shot dead at the scene. Israel's pro-ceasefire protest movement remains active as well. On the 27th, protesters disrupted a speech by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu commemorating the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack, demanding a halt to the fighting. But in a country where even peacetime protests rarely sway Netanyahu or his political allies, the current push — from Israeli advocates and foreigners alike — appears no more likely to succeed. In Gaza, Israel has routinely stonewalled, made false promises to its allies, and refused to compromise when a ceasefire might have been reached, and early indicators suggest its Lebanon approach will be similar. ## The Draft Ceasefire and the Long List of Obstacles In conversations revealed to Axios by both U.S. and Israeli officials, Israel has presented Washington with a series of Lebanon ceasefire demands that would be very hard for the rest of the world to meet. Among them: that Israel be allowed to actively enforce anti-Hezbollah rules inside southern Lebanon, operating within the country to ensure the group does not re-arm or reconsolidate, and that the Israeli air force be free to operate over Lebanese airspace. Both demands would constitute fundamental violations of Lebanese sovereignty — conditions neither Lebanon nor the international community would be likely to support. Not every sign points to escalation, however. As of October 29, there were genuine efforts to set terms for a ceasefire. The current draft would establish a sixty-day acclimation period — a temporary ceasefire giving mediators time to set up a mechanism to supervise southern Lebanon and prevent Hezbollah from rebuilding there. The IDF would withdraw from most of southern Lebanon, while the Lebanese Armed Forces would deploy thousands of troops to the south, supported by a rapid influx of French, German, and British forces. The problem is that neither Hezbollah nor the leaders of Israel's government has endorsed the plan, and with so many moving parts, it inherently carries numerous points of failure. Israel's government would have to abandon its expectation of active enforcement and its hopes for free operation in Lebanese airspace. Hezbollah would have to consent to Lebanese and international occupation of its key territory. Lebanon would have to figure out how to surge troops, and the other international parties would have to put large numbers of their own personnel in harm's way. A first-draft proposal is not nothing — but its long list of prerequisites, set against the enduring failure to reach a ceasefire in Gaza, suggests trouble almost certainly lies ahead. ## The American Election and the Road Ahead There is one more reason a deal is unlikely soon: Israel is improbable to enter any serious negotiation before its critical ally finishes a contentious election cycle, culminating in America's presidential and congressional elections on Tuesday, November 5. Netanyahu has been overt in his preference for a Donald Trump presidency over a Kamala Harris one, and will almost certainly wait for both a president-elect and a new balance in the U.S. House and Senate before discussing ceasefire terms. Should Trump win, Netanyahu may prove entirely unwilling to engage with the incumbent Biden administration for the rest of its term, pushing any hope of a ceasefire out to January 20 — when a candidate with no history of serious ceasefire advocacy would take office. WarFronts would be glad to be surprised in the coming weeks by an attempt to negotiate a real, lasting peace that allows displaced people to return home and saves the thousands of lives that would otherwise be lost. But while current indicators do not point to all-out war between Israel and Iran, or between Israel and Hezbollah, they do not point to a ceasefire either. For now, the slow march across southern Lebanon is likely to continue on pace, and so is the slow march to the brink between Iran and Israel. When this rhythm is interrupted, it tends to be because, all of a sudden, things start moving very fast. ## Frequently Asked Questions ### What was Operation Days of Repentance? It was the name Israel gave to its October 26, 2024, retaliatory strike on Iran. More than 100 Israeli combat aircraft — including F-15s, F-16s, drones, and stealth F-35 "Adir" jets — launched after midnight, crossed multiple national borders, and struck roughly twenty targets across three Iranian provinces in successive waves between about 2:15 a.m. and dawn. ### How much damage did the strike actually do? It targeted Iran's missile-production capacity, including hard-to-replace Chinese-made solid-fuel mixers, and U.S. assessments suggested it could take Iran at least a year to resume production. The first wave also destroyed most or all of Iran's advanced Soviet-made S-300 air-defense batteries, leaving Iran's airspace badly exposed — and within range of future Israeli strikes on energy infrastructure that was deliberately spared. ### Why were Iranian casualties so low, and how did Iran respond? Israel gave Iran advance warning detailing what it would and would not hit, likely letting Iran clear troops from target zones. Iranian state media downplayed the strike, and Iran's military hinted that retaliation could be off the table if a Gaza or Lebanon ceasefire is reached — suggesting the regime chose to absorb the blow rather than risk a far heavier Israeli follow-up. ### What is happening on the ground in southern Lebanon? The IDF broadened a limited advance through harsh highland terrain, boxing off territory while Hezbollah's Radwan fighters mostly retreat from hard-to-hold positions. Israel's deepest push was a tank column driving toward Khiam, a hilltop Hezbollah uses to direct rocket fire across northern Israel. As of October 30, Israel had lost thirty-two soldiers since the October 1 ground invasion began. ### Who is Naim Qassem and what does his appointment signal? Qassem, 71, was named Hezbollah's new leader on October 29 after serving as deputy to Hassan Nasrallah for more than three decades. He succeeded a brief interim successor, Hashem Safieddine, who was also killed by Israel. 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