Considering the possible ways that Iran may decide to retaliate against Israel for the targeted killings of some of its chief terrorists, Ron Ben-Yishai writes:

I will go out on a limb here and say that the level of anxiety, might I say panic, that has spread to large parts of the Israeli public, should be taken down a notch. . . . The Iranians will likely launch an “open conflict,” against Israel that could last two or three days, based on the international efforts of its regime and the statements of its senior officials and commanders. The attacks will be launched by its proxies as well and will attempt to challenge the U.S.-led coalition and Israeli defenses, but the attack will be measured and not very destructive.

This assessment is based on the knowledge that Iran is weak and its regime is concerned over its instability. If the Israeli home front were badly hit, Israel would be easily able to target at least 30 percent of Iran’s oil industry.

Israel will also quite easily destroy Iran’s dams, causing not only drought but a shortage of drinking water that would require the population to receive it in rations. Iranian ports, the country’s lifeline to the world, are large and more vulnerable than the ports of Haifa and Ashdod.

Not all of Iran’s nuclear facilities are underground and its military production sites, including its drone-production plants, are known to Israel’s intelligence and air force and are also susceptible to attack in a manner that would threaten the regime’s stability, and that is reason for restraint.

Yesterday, the beepers used by hundreds of Hizballah operatives were detonated. Noah Rothman puts this ingenious attack in the context of the overall war between Israel and the Iran-backed terrorist group:

[W]hile the disabling of an untold number of Hizballah operatives is remarkable, it’s also ominous. This week, the Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant told reporters that the hour is nearing when Israeli forces will have to confront Iran’s cat’s-paw in southern Lebanon directly, in order to return the tens of thousands of Israelis who fled their homes along Lebanon’s border under fire and have not yet been able to return. Today’s operation may be a prelude to the next phase of Israel’s defensive war, a dangerous one in which the IDF will face off against an enemy with tens of thousands of fighters and over 150,000 rockets and missiles trained on Israeli cities.

Seth Frantzman, meanwhile, focuses on the specific damage the pager bombings have likely done to Hizballah:

This will put the men in hospital for a period of time. Some of them can go back to serving Hizballah, but they will not have access to one of their hands. These will most likely be their dominant hand, meaning the hand they’d also use to hold the trigger of a rifle or push the button to launch a missile.

Hizballah has already lost around 450 fighters in its eleven-month confrontation with Israel. This is a significant loss for the group. While Hizballah can replace losses, it doesn’t have an endlessly deep [supply of recruits]. This is not only because it has to invest in training and security ahead of recruitment, but also because it draws its recruits from a narrow spectrum of Lebanese society.

The overall challenge for Hizballah is not just replacing wounded and dead fighters. The group will be challenged to . . . roll out some other way to communicate with its men. The use of pagers may seem archaic, but Hizballah apparently chose to use this system because it assumed the network could not be penetrated. . . . It will also now be concerned about the penetration of its operational security. When groups like Hizballah are in chaos, they are more vulnerable to making mistakes.