The Israel Defense Force (IDF) has met little resistance since announcing its "limited" invasion of southern Lebanon early Tuesday morning local time, a move aimed to subvert Hezbollah’s buildup along the shared border. 

Israel has been increasing its strikes for weeks against the terrorist organization in southern Lebanon, as well as with targeted strikes in Beirut.

On Tuesday, the IDF confirmed in a statement shared with Fox News Digital that since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks in Israel – after which Hezbollah began striking military posts along Israel’s northern border – the IDF has conducted dozens of "targeted operations" to "dismantle Hezbollah’s terrorist capabilities" that pose a threat to civilians in the north.

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IDF spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said Tuesday that IDF special forces have entered Hezbollah compounds in "dozens of locations" along the Israel-Lebanon border, collected intelligence and dismantled positional strongholds. 

"Our soldiers entered Hezbollah's underground infrastructures, exposed Hezbollah's hidden weapon caches, and seized and destroyed the weapons, including advanced Iranian-made weapons," Hagari said. "Overall, IDF soldiers exposed and dismantled over 700 Hezbollah terror assets during these operations. And there's a lot more work to do."

Since the war began nearly a year ago, Israeli special forces reportedly began conducting small raids in southern Lebanon, in some cases utilizing the very tunnels Israel seized from the terrorist group years prior, and renewed attention has been brought to how the Hezbollah network operates. 

The terrorist group for years has relied on its heavy entanglement in civilian life, particularly in southern Lebanon, where it has rented civilian infrastructure to serve as weapons depots and even missile launcher sites. Civilian buildings have also been used to cover entrances to the group's sophisticated tunnel network that is estimated to stretch over 100 miles in length cumulatively across the region. 

But despite the feared all-out war that had the potential to erupt upon Israel's invasion of its northern neighbor, Hezbollah’s resistance has been minimal.  

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Security experts feared Hezbollah’s longtime backing from Iran would enable it to levy as many as 8,000 rockets per day in a worse case scenario, and its more than 50,000 operatives, including the elite Radwan forces, could pose a significant threat against an Israeli ground campaign. 

Hagari confirmed to reporters Tuesday that IDF forces were actively working to dismantle Radwan infrastructure near the border in southern Lebanon.

"We need to take care of it because we will not let another 7th of October occur next to our border," he said.

In the aftermath of the Oct. 7 attacks, the IDF assessed that some 2,400 Radwan terrorists, along with another 500 Palestinian Jihadists trained by the elite force, were positioned in villages across southern Lebanon poised to attack.

But the IDF on Tuesday also highlighted that Hezbollah failed to mount a counter force in response to Israel’s incursion.

Jonathan Conricus, former IDF spokesperson and current senior fellow for the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), told Fox News Digital that Hezbollah’s near-complete lack of a counter force could be explained by several reasons. 

"The IDF conducted hundreds of special operations during the last months to map and analyze Hezbollah’s hostile infrastructure in civilian houses in southern Lebanon, as well as targeted aerial campaigns against Hezbollah personnel," he said. "Hezbollah terrorists sustained severe casualties and started to flee from southern Lebanon. 

"It remains unclear how many Hezbollah militants remain in the south," he added. 

Given the unknown number of terrorists who fled the south, most likely to other strongholds in Beirut and in central Lebanon, reporters questioned the current IDF spokesman if this could mean that Israel will need to expand its operations north.

"We're not going to Beirut," Hagari told reporters, emphasizing Israel's stated goal to return its citizens to their northern homes.  "We are focusing in the area of those villages, the area next to [the] border. And we will do, in this area, what is necessary to dismantle and demolish Hezbollah's infrastructure."

Hagari would not provide specifics on the operational timeline but said Israel’s campaign in Lebanon would be conducted in "days [to] weeks."

Hope and justice go hand-in-hand, and Dr. Michael Baden delivered both to some families who, at one point, had neither.

The renowned forensic pathologist also saved an innocent man from a life behind bars.

How he did it is the subject of the latest Fox Nation series, "The Baden Files."

"In my lifetime, I performed more than 20,000 autopsies. I've been asked by Congress to investigate the deaths of very famous people like President John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr., but more than 99% of my work has been on lesser-known cases," Baden told viewers.

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Bringing in Baden helped reawaken some cases that had appeared to go cold with time, including one that unfolded in Council Bluffs, Iowa.

After apparent murder victim Ilene Gowan's family vowed to seek justice for her, they brought in Baden to look deeper into her case. 

"One particular case brought me out to the Midwest, to an investigation that was more like a puzzle – a stolen safe, a body in a ditch, a missing cell phone…" Baden narrated.

But none of those explained what had happened to Gowan. The piece that did help? An ordinary zipper.

The first episode of "The Baden Files" focuses on that unconventional piece of evidence, and how it helped unravel a devastating truth – Gowan had been strangled, and her "undetermined" cause of death shifted to "homicide."

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"This tells me what happened. Not who done it – that's up to the police," Baden said, holding up a photo of the marking.

But the investigation had quickly narrowed two suspects to one that offered a damning piece of information.

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Baden also assisted with the case of Ellen Andros, a wife and mother whose death led the community to cast suspicion on her husband, an Atlantic City cop who came home from a night of drinking and discovered her dead. 

As a healthy 31-year-old woman, evidence – particularly small red markings on her face – pointed to homicide. But things weren't exactly as they seemed.

"Forensic pathology provides a way to speak to the dead from beyond the grave," Baden said. "And, in this case, Ellen Andros had a lot to say to me."

The series also follows Dr. Baden's involvement in the investigation of the "West Memphis Three," a case surrounding three teen boys arrested for the murder of three eight-year-old Cub Scouts in West Memphis, Arkansas in 1993.

Years later, Dr. Baden was brought into the picture, and he arrived at a conclusion that spun the original forensic analysis on its head.

"The answers are there. You just have to know what to look for."

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