By Joshua Arnold

In Israel, what would make for “major headlines in any other place” becomes “a headline for an hour, and then it gets pushed aside,” Real Life Network news director Daniel Cohen said Monday on “Washington Watch.” Later that evening, Israeli soldiers crossed the border into Lebanon; by lunchtime on Tuesday, that historic headline had been overtaken by news that Iran had launched missiles at Israel.

In retrospect, the now-storied pager attack was a ramp turning the eastern Mediterranean seaboard onto a superhighway of activity.

On Friday, an Israeli airstrike eliminated Hezbollah’s top commander Hassan Nasrallah, a terrorist villain “right there on par with [al-]Baghdadi, the head of ISIS, [or] Osama bin Laden, the head of al-Qaeda, [who was] responsible for the deaths of hundreds of Americans,” said Rep. Mike Waltz (R-Fla.) on “Washington Watch” Monday.

On Sunday, separate Israel Defense Force (IDF) airstrikes killed high-ranking Hezbollah commander Nabil Kaouk and Hamas commander Fateh Sharif, who also led the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) teachers’ union in Lebanon. Also on Sunday, Israel killed four and wounded 29 people in an airstrike against the Yemen-based Houthis, another Iran-backed terror group that has attacked Israel and disrupted global shipping. On Monday, the IDF killed Nidal Abdel-Aal, who led the Lebanon Branch of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PLFP), a lesser-known U.S.-designated terrorist organization that organizes terror activities in Judea and Samaria, as well as Imad Odeh, who headed the PLFP’s Military Office in Lebanon.

Is your mind spinning yet? “Things are moving so quickly there now that the pace is dizzying,” reflected National Review’s Jeffrey Blehar. If it is for the ordinary American writer, just imagine what it feels like to Hezbollah militants.

Before Monday was out, “the IDF began limited, localized, and targeted ground raids based on precise intelligence against Hezbollah terrorist targets and infrastructure in southern Lebanon,” Israel announced. The raids, supported by air and artillery fire, appear to be an extension of Operation Northern Arrows, the Israeli codename for “a methodical plan set out by the General Staff and the Northern Command, which soldiers have trained and prepared for in recent months,” to allow northern Israeli residents to return to their homes in safety.

In short, Israel has yet to move its foot from the accelerator, and “it does not look like anything is slowing down,” said Family Research Council President Tony Perkins on Monday. “This is rearranging the political landscape of the Middle East. I mean, Iran has to be rethinking its aggressiveness with its proxies that are being rolled over by Israel.”

Indeed, Iran did rethink its strategy, and events soon accelerated to the speed of a missile. “Iran can’t trust their proxies anymore,” suggested Cohen. So, after dark on Tuesday, Iran launched 180 missiles at Israel, alerting siren systems and forcing civilians all over Israel to enter bomb shelters. The U.S. alerted Israel to the attack shortly before it occurred, and two U.S. destroyers fired about a dozen interceptors at the missiles.

Video footage showed many missiles made it through Israel’s missile defense system and impacted. At publishing time, no reports on damage caused or casualties inflicted had been released.

Separately, two heavily armed terrorists attacked a public transit line in Jaffa just before the Iranian airstrike, killing eight and wounding seven. That would be the headline on a normal news day. But not in Israel, not as it approaches the one-year anniversary of the October 7 Hamas attack.

The Israeli Air Force “continues to operate at full capacity, and tonight will also continue to strike powerfully in the Middle East, as has been the case for the past year,” responded IDF Spokesman Daniel Hagari. “Iran carried out a serious act tonight and is pushing the Middle East to an escalation. We will act at the place and time of our choosing, in accordance with the guidance of the political echelon. Tonight’s event will have consequences.”

“Tonight’s event” also demonstrates once again that Israel is at war, and has been at war, with Iran. The Islamist regime prefers to fight Israel through their proxies, but they are willing to enter the ring itself whenever Israel’s advantage grows large enough. The Iranian missile barrage demonstrates what has always been true of the war, that “strategic victory lies in Tehran, and as long as they are flush with cash, they will help Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Houthis rebuild,” as Waltz presciently said Monday.

Joshua Arnold is a senior writer at The Washington Stand.