Operation Eternal Darkness was an IDF airstrike on 8 April 2026 in which 50 jets dropped 160 bombs on 100+ Hezbollah targets across central Beirut and the Bekaa Valley, killing 254 people and wounding 1,165 within ten minutes.Source: IDF / Lowdown update 63

Why did Israel strike Lebanon during the Iran ceasefire?

Israel launched Operation Eternal Darkness hours after the US-brokered Iran Ceasefire took effect, targeting what it described as Hezbollah command nodes and weapons depots. The IDF did not regard the Iran Ceasefire as binding on its Lebanon operations.Source: Lowdown update 63

How many people were killed in the Israel Lebanon strike on 8 April 2026?

254 people were killed and 1,165 wounded in Operation Eternal Darkness on 8 April 2026, making it the deadliest single IDF operation in Lebanon since the 2006 war.Source: IDF / Lebanese Health Ministry

Background

Operation Eternal Darkness was the Israeli Defence Forces' largest single Lebanon operation since the 2006 war, launched on the night of 8 April 2026, hours after a US-brokered Iran Ceasefire took effect. 50 fighter jets dropped 160 bombs on 100-plus Hezbollah targets across central Beirut and the Bekaa Valley simultaneously, with no advance warning to Lebanese civilian authorities. The IDF reported 254 people killed and 1,165 wounded within ten minutes of the first strike.

The operation targeted what the IDF described as Hezbollah command nodes, weapons depots, and tunnel infrastructure. Among those killed was Ali Yusuf Harshi, the nephew and personal secretary of Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem, in a strike on the Shmestar cemetery in the Bekaa Valley during a funeral. At least ten mourners died in that single strike. Hezbollah responded the following day with rocket salvoes on Kiryat Shmona, citing the operation as a Ceasefire violation by Israel.

The timing created an immediate diplomatic crisis. Iran's Deputy Foreign Minister Saeed Khatibzadeh told the BBC the operation demonstrated that Israel was attempting to exploit the Ceasefire window unilaterally. Iran's Parliament Speaker Ghalibaf listed the strikes among the violations rendering the Ceasefire framework unworkable. The operation raised fundamental questions about whether the US-brokered pause could hold when Israel was simultaneously conducting offensive operations in Lebanon.