As huge air strikes levelled at least six buildings in the southern suburbs of Beirut, it became clear that Israel was targeting Hezbollah’s headquarters.
What was not clear in the aftermath was whether Hassan Nasrallah, the Hezbollah leader, was killed.
The huge bombing in Lebanon comes after a week of some of the most globally extensive air strikes of the 21st century, in what Israel has called Operation Northern Arrows – a campaign against Iran’s most formidable regional proxy.
The lead up to Friday’s attack was paved by a series of preliminary strikes to decapitate Hezbollah’s military leadership, cripple its subaltern class, destroy its ability to communicate meaningfully and spread panic through its ranks.
The synchronised sabotage of the group’s pagers last week caught the world’s attention, but by then Israeli forces had already embarked on an assassination operation to eliminate as many of Hezbollah’s high command as possible.
The first significant blow was struck in the summer when Fuad Shukr, the movement’s overall military leader, died in an air strike on southern Beirut, a stronghold of the terrorist group.
But arguably a more devastating strike came in September in another attack on the Lebanese capital that killed some 16 commanders of the Radwan Brigade, Hezbollah’s elite special forces unit, including Ibrahim Aqil, the overall leader of the unit.
And Israel does not seem finished yet. The IDF is now almost certainly attempting to kill the group’s overall leader Hassan Nasrallah.