A senior IDF official said last night that “Eternal Darkness” was no less successful than the “Pagers” operation — and he may be right.

A new capability made it possible to locate Hezbollah’s alternate command centers and strike directly at its command echelon. The result: a broad blow to the core of Hezbollah’s command-and-control system — a surprise strike that had been planned as the opening blow of the operation even before the war, and was later adapted after Hezbollah changed its deployment.

Within about 10 minutes, roughly 100 command centers were attacked, and most of the organization’s covert infrastructure was hit.

According to assessments, hundreds of operatives were killed, including many commanders — which distinguishes this operation from the “Pagers” operation, in which primarily militants, rather than commanders, were killed.

(Yossi Yehoshua)