Early Monday morning, militants in Gaza launched a rocket that hit a home in the vicinity of Tel Aviv, injuring several residents, including two small children. Israel responded with extensive airstrikes at Hamas targets in Gaza, returned by dozens of Hamas rockets aimed at communities near the Strip. On Tuesday the terrorist group announced a ceasefire even as balloons with explosives attached were still being launched into Israel. It is too soon to know whether the rocket fire will resume. Yoav Limor comments:

If Hamas acts with [some] degree of restraint, perhaps this round of escalation—the umpteenth such round over the past year—will not become war. [However], Hamas’s rocket attack on Monday was a message to Israel. It was a warning that the terrorist group could have just as easily hit the Ben-Gurion International Airport and other strategic assets. Another terrorist group, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, can also do the same. . . .

Israel [should] try to make sure this latest escalation ends with actual gains. It cannot let Hamas’s repeated harassment of border communities with airborne incendiary devices go unpunished. Israel must also change the rules of the game by creating a secure perimeter near the border fence that would be off-limits to rioters. And above all, Israel must extract a clearcut statement from Hamas pledging not to engage in rocket fire and to prevent others from doing so.

Such a statement would be issued only if Hamas feels it has something to lose. Israel must not yield on this because otherwise the hostilities will erupt again.

Early Friday morning, Israel attacked military installations near the Iranian cities of Isfahan and nearby Natanz, the latter being one of the hubs of the country’s nuclear program. Jerusalem is not taking credit for the attack, and none of the details are too certain, but it seems that the attack involved multiple drones, likely launched from within Iran, as well as one or more missiles fired from Syrian or Iraqi airspace. Strikes on Syrian radar systems shortly beforehand probably helped make the attack possible, and there were reportedly strikes on Iraq as well.

Iran itself is downplaying the attack, but the S-300 air-defense batteries in Isfahan appear to have been destroyed or damaged. This is a sophisticated Russian-made system positioned to protect the Natanz nuclear installation. In other words, Israel has demonstrated that Iran’s best technology can’t protect the country’s skies from the IDF. As Yossi Kuperwasser puts it, the attack, combined with the response to the assault on April 13,

clarified to the Iranians that whereas we [Israelis] are not as vulnerable as they thought, they are more vulnerable than they thought. They have difficulty hitting us, but we have no difficulty hitting them.

Nobody knows exactly how the operation was carried out. . . . It is good that a question mark hovers over . . . what exactly Israel did. Let’s keep them wondering. It is good for deniability and good for keeping the enemy uncertain.

The fact that we chose targets that were in the vicinity of a major nuclear facility but were linked to the Iranian missile and air forces was a good message. It communicated that we can reach other targets as well but, as we don’t want escalation, we chose targets nearby that were involved in the attack against Israel. I think it sends the message that if we want to, we can send a stronger message. Israel is not seeking escalation at the moment.