From September 17 to September 27, Hezbollah experienced ten days that fundamentally altered the course of the war: from the coordinated detonations of pagers and communication radios, through the systematic destruction of its strategic missile stockpiles and leadership echelon, to the 80 tons of munitions dropped directly onto Hassan Nasrallah’s underground bunker. It was an unprecedented campaign—on par with Operation Focus in the 1967 Six-Day War, and arguably surpassing it.
2+Just as the Jewish people observe the Ten Days of Repentance—distinctions aside, of course—Hezbollah endured its own fateful ten days. It commenced on September 17 at 15:30 with the synchronized pager explosions, cascading day after day: walkie-talkies, precision missiles, operational command posts, and the organization’s entire General Staff. The crescendo arrived on September 27, when the IDF delivered 80 tons of ordnance onto the bunker shielding Nasrallah.
It was an astounding operation. It is doubtful any military in the world has ever executed a campaign of such caliber. It stands as one of the most brilliant military operations in modern history, standing shoulder to shoulder with Operation Focus—and perhaps even eclipsing it.
2+Yet today, as we approach the anniversary, archival footage broadcast during those pivotal days is resurfacing. Once again, one can listen to the rhetoric pushed across the panic-mongering, demoralizing, defeatist, and propaganda-laden channels. On the afternoon of the pager attack, and throughout the crucial days that followed, prominent analysts simply failed to comprehend what was unfolding before their eyes.
Listening back to commentators such as Raviv Drucker, Dana Weiss, Amos Gilad, Israel Ziv, Nir Dvori, and others is genuinely staggering. They repeatedly asked: Where is the strategy? What does this achieve? Why do this now, and how does it advance Israel’s position? The exact same doubts and anxieties were broadcast on a continuous loop, precisely while a tectonic historical maneuver was materializing in real time.
2+Only when revisiting those clips today does the immense gulf between on-the-ground reality and the narrative peddled in the television studios become undeniably clear. This is not merely a perspective on those ten days; it reflects what has aired in those studios day after day, week after week, month after month, and year after year—for decades.
One day, when a museum documenting the history of Israeli media is built, those broadcasts deserve an honored place. Not only to document what was claimed in real time, but to provide lasting perspective—and to demonstrate how the supreme confidence projected by studio commentators is often entirely detached from reality on the battlefield.
Well done and happy holiday.