Comment by tptacek

It indeed does. Unless you are a medic or a chaplain, if you are even under the effective command of Hezbollah, let alone employed by it, you're a valid combatant target. Uniforms and current participation in combat operations has nothing to do with it.

If you want to make the claim that Hezbollah operates schools and hospitals and that employment at those institutions doesn't designate somebody as a combatant, I will absolutely agree with you. But it's very unlikely, to me, that those people are carrying Hezbollah military command and control telecoms devices. We could learn otherwise, and if we do, I'll acknowledge that. But from what we're learning now, it's not looking likely.

It eliminated their entire command and control network, hospitalized hundreds of their officers and command staff, put the IRGC on notice that it has been comprehensively infiltrated, and will force months of internal investigations and purges.

Further, it comes during a time where Iran has been publicly messaging about retaliation for the killing of Ismael Haniyeh, so there's a geopolitical angle to it as well: "we can do this, think about what we'll do next if you try launching another 300 drones at us".

I don't think it's very hard to make a military validity argument here (of course, it's easy for me to do that, since I'm shoplifting an argument from Noga Tarnopolsky and Oz Katerji here).