By: Tzirel Rosenblatt

For weeks, speculation swirled in Jerusalem about whether the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) would authorize a large-scale ground maneuver into southern Lebanon to counter Hezbollah’s escalating provocations. Yet, even as political debate consumed the airwaves, a different war was already being waged in the shadows. According to a report at Jewish Breaking News, newly revealed details show that Israeli special forces have conducted more than 200 clandestine raids across the border, dismantling Hezbollah infrastructure and eliminating operatives through precision sabotage and coordinated airpower—all without firing a shot in most cases.

The campaign, code-named “Raising the Curtain,” represents one of the most audacious covert undertakings in modern IDF history, leveraging the stealth and lethality of Israel’s elite commando units to neutralize threats before they materialize into battlefield realities.

The hallmark of this shadow campaign is not the crackle of gunfire but the absence of it. As one officer from the Egoz Reconnaissance Unit told Jewish Breaking News, “If I fire, I’ve failed.” That statement encapsulates the doctrine underpinning these operations: the goal is to degrade Hezbollah’s capacity to launch rockets, anti-tank guided missiles (ATGMs), and ground incursions without drawing the kind of attention that could spiral into a larger conflagration.

Rather than engage in direct firefights, Israeli commandos employed precision sabotage, demolition charges, electronic disruption, and the pinpoint guidance of Israeli Air Force (IAF) munitions. The result is a lethal choreography in which special forces infiltrate villages such as Kil’a, Hula, and Adaisseh, locate hidden rocket launchers or tunnels, and either destroy them on site or mark them for rapid elimination from the air.

The campaign was directed by Northern Command’s 91st Division, long tasked with defending Israel’s vulnerable northern border. Under its oversight, an array of Israel’s most specialized units rotated through southern Lebanon:

Sayeret Golani, the elite reconnaissance arm of the Golani Brigade, renowned for deep-penetration raids.

Egoz Unit, originally designed for guerrilla warfare and counter-terrorism, now adapted to counter Hezbollah’s Radwan Force.

Yahalom, the Engineering Corps’ elite bomb disposal and tunnel warfare unit, crucial for dismantling subterranean infrastructure.

Oketz, Israel’s elite canine unit, trained for search, detection, and ambush missions.

Together, these units operated with surgical precision, each leveraging its unique expertise to form an ecosystem of covert lethality. The report at Jewish Breaking News emphasized that the campaign’s scale dwarfs earlier disclosures of “dozens” of operations, revealing instead a sustained tempo exceeding 200 raids since hostilities reignited.

The operational concept of “Raising the Curtain” places an emphasis on neutralizing Hezbollah infrastructure rather than attrition warfare. Commandos meticulously mapped out enemy assets, including rocket launchers concealed in civilian structures or agricultural fields, ATGM positions dug into hillsides, designed to ambush Israeli armor, and cross-border tunnels, intended as infiltration routes for Hezbollah’s Radwan shock troops.

These assets were destroyed in silence. Explosive charges reduced tunnels to rubble; precision airstrikes vaporized launchers marked by laser designators or GPS beacons. By stripping Hezbollah’s forward deployment areas of equipment, Israel effectively crippled its adversary’s ability to initiate an invasion south of the Litani River.

Jewish Breaking News reported that the quiet nature of these missions was deliberate. Each raid was designed to be deniable, controlled, and minimally escalatory, buying Israel time to operate under the fog of political uncertainty.

At the heart of the IDF’s covert effort lies Hezbollah’s Radwan Force, an elite formation tasked with storming across the border in the event of war. Named after the late Hezbollah commander Imad Mughniyeh (nom de guerre “Hajj Radwan”), this unit has drilled extensively for lightning strikes into Israeli territory, with objectives including seizing border communities and even military outposts.

By dismantling Radwan’s logistical pathways—rockets, tunnels, and ATGM nests—Israel has quietly eroded the very foundation of Hezbollah’s invasion doctrine. What was once envisioned as a rapid and coordinated thrust across the fence has been reduced to a fragmented and increasingly unrealistic dream.

According to the information provided in the Jewish Breaking News report, the systematic stripping away of Radwan’s assets has created “invisible gaps” in Hezbollah’s southern front, gaps that may prove decisive should open war erupt.

Earlier official accounts suggested “dozens” of cross-border raids and some 70 special forces operations since the start of fighting. The new revelations, however, expand the scope to over 200 missions—a scale suggesting near-daily incursions into enemy territory.

This consistency reveals an IDF strategy of constant disruption: keeping Hezbollah perpetually off-balance, never allowing it to consolidate or regenerate operational capacity near the border. The report at Jewish Breaking News noted that this updated tally proves the groundwork for Israel’s current tactical edge was laid well before any formal consideration of a broader ground maneuver.

The hallmark of “Raising the Curtain” has been the integration of air and ground assets. IDF commando teams were not designed to carry heavy ordnance across the border. Instead, they became the eyes and hands of the IAF, which delivered the decisive blows.

This synergy was visible in countless missions where Yahalom engineers placed charges on tunnel entrances, only for IAF jets to obliterate deeper segments of the network minutes later. Similarly, Oketz units identified hidden ATGM squads, relaying their coordinates to aircraft that struck with surgical precision.

According to the information contained in the Jewish Breaking News report, the efficiency of this model allowed Israel to maximize lethality while minimizing the risks of close-quarter firefights—hence the striking statistic that many terrorists were eliminated without a single IDF bullet fired.

The revelation of this covert campaign carries profound implications:

Deterrence: Hezbollah, long confident in its ability to wage attritional warfare, must now reckon with the reality that its frontline infrastructure is systematically penetrated and dismantled.

Psychological Warfare: The very knowledge that Israeli commandos operate undetected within Lebanese villages sows paranoia, forcing Hezbollah to expend resources on self-policing rather than offensive planning.

Strategic Flexibility: By conducting these raids covertly, Israel avoids the political costs of a large-scale ground operation while still achieving many of its objectives.

Operational Doctrine: The doctrine articulated by the Egoz officer—“If I fire, I’ve failed”—underscores a modern evolution in Israeli warfare: prioritizing disruption, precision, and asymmetry over brute force.

For Hezbollah, the silent degradation of its arsenal presents a strategic quandary. To escalate overtly risks inviting the very ground invasion it wishes to deter; to remain passive allows Israel to dismantle its forward defenses piece by piece.

The revelations published by Jewish Breaking News suggest Hezbollah has been caught in a reactive posture, unsure whether to reveal its remaining capabilities or conceal them in hopes of future use. Either choice plays into Israel’s hands.

Inside Israel, the disclosure of these covert operations will inevitably shape the national debate over whether a broader northern war is necessary. On one hand, the success of “Raising the Curtain” may strengthen voices arguing that a major ground invasion is redundant. On the other, the very act of crossing into Lebanon—however limited—risks dragging Israel into an escalatory spiral should Hezbollah respond with broader rocket salvos.

The report at Jewish Breaking News has underscored that the political echelon was fully aware of these raids, even as public discourse often treated them as hypothetical or minimal. The contrast between political theater and operational reality may fuel renewed calls for transparency in wartime decision-making.

The revelation of more than 200 cross-border raids in Lebanon marks a watershed in understanding how Israel fights its northern war. Through “Raising the Curtain,” the IDF has redefined the battlefield, prioritizing stealth, sabotage, and precision over conventional maneuvers.

As the Jewish Breaking News report observed, these operations demonstrate Israel’s ability to dismantle its adversaries’ capabilities without plunging into full-scale war. Yet they also highlight the precarious balance on the northern frontier, where every covert demolition risks sparking a wider conflict.

The lesson is stark: in modern warfare, silence can be deadlier than noise. For Hezbollah’s Radwan Force, the absence of gunfire may well prove more devastating than the fiercest barrage.