On Tuesday afternoon, the IDF issued an unusual countrywide warning that intelligence had shown that Hezbollah would try to hit Israel with an escalated rocket assault.
Despite Iran's deadly overnight ballistic missile attack on Israel, killing two Israelis and wounding many others, the IDF said on Wednesday that it had succeeded in reducing Hezbollah's ability to stage its planned larger scale rocket assault overnight.
On Tuesday afternoon, the IDF issued an unusual countrywide warning that intelligence had shown that Hezbollah would try to hit Israel with an escalated rocket assault.
In contrast to March 11 when Hezbollah managed to fire over 200 rockets on Israel in an escalated assault (its standard rocket fire per day during the current conflict has been around 100) and caught much of the North and the country off-guard, the IDF's efforts on Tuesday-Wednesday put the Lebanese terror group a bit more on its back heels, with it only managing to fire around 40 rockets.
In addition, the IDF said that most of Hezbollah's rockets are currently falling short in Lebanon.
Hezbollah rockets did not make it into the center of the country, though they did make it into both the northern border towns and the Lower Galilee.
Also in contrast to March 11, when the IDF only managed to destroy one rocket launcher prior to its firing, overnight the IDF was able to destroy around 10 Hezbollah launchers prior to their firing.
IDF warns Hezbollah adapting tactics in effort to increase rocket fire
At the same time, the IDF said that its modest success Tuesday-Wednesday in no way guarantees success for the future.
The military warned that Hezbollah - even beyond the past 24 hours - is making efforts to increase its daily rocket fire from around 100 rockets to 150 rockets.
Hezbollah has adjusted to IDF tactics, by decentralizing its rocket crews into even smaller crews.
If before a single larger rocket crew might have been responsible for firing 30 rockets from one launcher, many such launchers have now been broken up into smaller crews to fire only five rockets per cell.
The idea is that if the IDF strikes a cell it will only neutralize five rockets as opposed to destroying 30, as it often managed to do in fall 2024.
Further, Hezbollah has adjusted by moving many of its rockets into Lebanese areas North of the Litani River, firing at Israel often from a distance of 40-43 kilometers, a distance which makes it harder for Israel to attack them beforehand.
The flip slide of these new Hezbollah tactics is that more of its rockets are falling short and it is harder for the terror group to launch large salvos of rockets in a coordinated fashion.
In addition, the IDF said that its newer pushes deeper into southern Lebanon have managed to destroy more Hezbollah weapons and to kill more terrorists, with the number jumping from 300 killed during the current conflict to around 500.
Moreover, the IDF overnight started to strike Tyre in expanded efforts to remove Hezbollah from central areas it would try to use for organizing its various military moves.
Finally, the IDF said it is prepared for a longer campaign in Lebanon than might have been originally expected.
