On Friday, a Hamas sniper in Gaza shot and killed an Israeli soldier, prompting the IDF to respond with intensive attacks on the terrorist group’s positions. Since then, Hamas has agreed to a cease-fire that it has thus far observed. Amnon Lord comments on the situation:

Saturday has gone down in IDF records as the quietest day on Israel’s border with Gaza since the end of March, when Hamas first embarked on its border campaign. . . . It is still too early to determine whether this last round over the weekend restored the deterrence in place following 2014’s Operation Protective Edge. According to one media report, Israel has committed itself not to target children or youths sending over incendiary kites. Still, [it has made clear that] the entire range of targets [in Gaza] is open to attack, and no one in Hamas’s senior echelon has immunity.

Since the beginning of Hamas’s campaign, the IDF’s policy [regarding Gaza] was to create a “cumulative balance of losses” on the other side. The terrorists acted on three fronts: they shot rockets, attacked the border fence, and launched incendiary kites, [balloons, and the like]. The IDF considers its efforts on the border-fence front a success because the border was not breached—one of the main goals of the so-called “March of Return.” It’s not entirely clear that the enemy is of the same opinion. It has used the border disturbances to mobilize its people endlessly and give them the sense they are engaged in a war of attrition.

Furthermore, for the first time in the history of Israel’s wars against Hamas, the Israeli left, along with some American Jews and some members of the American Democratic party, are standing up in support of the terrorist organization. From Hamas’s perspective, the fact that Israeli intellectuals have come to, in some respect, identify with the Islamist terrorist organization is a remarkable achievement. . . .

The IDF’s goal is clear: to restore peace and quiet. At some point, someone [in Israel] will have to decide whether Israel can live with a terrorist entity capable of rattling the country, each time through the use of new and unexpected methods.

Analyzing the recent direct Iranian attack on Israel, and Israel’s security situation more generally, Michael Oren looks to the 2015 agreement to restrain Iran’s nuclear program. That, and President Biden’s efforts to resurrect the deal after Donald Trump left it, are in his view the source of the current crisis:

Of the original motivations for the deal—blocking Iran’s path to the bomb and transforming Iran into a peaceful nation—neither remained. All Biden was left with was the ability to kick the can down the road and to uphold Barack Obama’s singular foreign-policy achievement.

In order to achieve that result, the administration has repeatedly refused to punish Iran for its malign actions:

Historians will survey this inexplicable record and wonder how the United States not only allowed Iran repeatedly to assault its citizens, soldiers, and allies but consistently rewarded it for doing so. They may well conclude that in a desperate effort to avoid getting dragged into a regional Middle Eastern war, the U.S. might well have precipitated one.

While America’s friends in the Middle East, especially Israel, have every reason to feel grateful for the vital assistance they received in intercepting Iran’s missile and drone onslaught, they might also ask what the U.S. can now do differently to deter Iran from further aggression. . . . Tehran will see this weekend’s direct attack on Israel as a victory—their own—for their ability to continue threatening Israel and destabilizing the Middle East with impunity.

Israel, of course, must respond differently. Our target cannot simply be the Iranian proxies that surround our country and that have waged war on us since October 7, but, as the Saudis call it, “the head of the snake.”