On April 8, 2026, Israel struck Lebanon, hitting 100 sites in 90 seconds in one of Israel’s deadliest bombing campaigns in Lebanon in the past two years…The April 8 Israeli bombings hit in the middle of the afternoon and left more than 350 people dead, including more than 130 women and children, according to Lebanon’s health ministry. Israel said it killed 250 militants and released the identities of a handful, saying they were unit commanders and intelligence officers…Lebanese civil defense said strikes hit half a dozen sites in the heart of Beirut—upscale neighborhoods and tourist areas outside of Hezbollah’s traditional Shia Muslim strongholds in the southern suburbs. Residents screamed and ran from the explosions as plumes of smoke rose one after the other into the sunny Mediterranean sky.
Ragheda Sharara, who was chased out of her home in Beirut’s southern suburbs at the beginning of March by the fighting, was staying at the Manara Riva Suites hotel by the sea when the bombs hit. The 34-year-old was sitting in the lobby when she felt the airstrikes and saw falling glass and smoke. Worried the building would fall, she ran outside and saw rescuers with a naked elderly woman who had been bathing and whose legs were severed in the blast.
Israel says its targets weren’t top officials but rather midlevel battlefield commanders who it said were responsible for directing strikes at Israel and Israeli forces. The goal was to create a psychological shock by hitting them simultaneously without warning, an aerial version of the pager attack that decimated the Hezbollah’s ranks two years ago, people familiar with the operation said. Israel named the operation “Eternal Darkness.”
Excerpt from Omar Abdel-Baqui, ‘Bombs Fell Like Rain’: The Israeli Attack That Hit 100 Lebanese Targets in 90 Seconds, WSJ, Apr. 17, 2026
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