Last night, Hizballah fired a barrage of rockets into the Israeli town of Kiryat Shmonah, which sits close to the Lebanese border. No one was harmed, but a rocket attack on the same town on Tuesday left two people seriously injured. On Wednesday, a more alarming barrage from Lebanon hit Safed, which lies much further from the border, leaving one dead and eight wounded. In response to that attack, Israel carried out extensive airstrikes on Hizballah positions in Lebanon on Wednesday and Thursday, which Defense Minister Yoav Gallant described as an increase of “one level out of ten” over the intensity of previous IDF missions.

Notable also is a speech that Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of the Iran-backed terrorist group, delivered on Tuesday, in which he stated that attacks on Israel will only stop “when the shooting stops in Gaza,” and dismissing American and French diplomatic efforts to diffuse the situation. Eyal Zisser and Shaked Sadeh write:

In the 130 days of fighting, the IDF gained control over large parts of Gaza, weakened Hamas’s military power, and is now approaching Rafah, Hamas’s last stronghold. This is an uncomfortable reality for Nasrallah, who finds himself under a harsh spotlight in the Arab world, as many accuse him of not doing enough for Gaza. After all, he could have launched an all-out campaign against Israel, [even employing his ground forces].

Nasrallah’s speech was not new or very truthful. . . . Nasrallah also did not tell his listeners about the heavy blows the IDF struck against Hizballah, even though [the organization insists] on reporting the casualties in its ranks almost every evening.

For the first time, the ball is no longer in Nasrallah’s court, but in Israel’s, as it is the one to decide whether it wants to add and intensify its efforts in Gaza and maintain the conflict in Lebanon with a small fire, or perhaps turn its attention to escalation on the northern border as well. Nasrallah knows this and all he can do is try to calm his supporters and try to intimidate the Israelis so they won’t even consider going for a full-scale war against Hizballah.

Addressing a recent meeting of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s Central Committee, Mahmoud Abbas criticized Hamas more sharply than he has previously (at least in public), calling them “sons of dogs.” The eighty-nine-year-old Palestinian Authority president urged the terrorist group to “stop the war of extermination in Gaza” and “hand over the American hostages.” The editors of the New York Sun comment:

Mr. Abbas has long been at odds with Hamas, which violently ousted his Fatah party from Gaza in 2007. The tone of today’s outburst, though, is new. Comparing rivals to canines, which Arabs consider dirty, is startling. Its motivation, though, was unrelated to the plight of the 59 remaining hostages, including 23 living ones. Instead, it was an attempt to use an opportune moment for reviving Abbas’s receding clout.

[W]hile Hamas’s popularity among Palestinians soared after its orgy of killing on October 7, 2023, it is now sinking. The terrorists are hoarding Gaza aid caches that Israel declines to replenish. As the war drags on, anti-Hamas protests rage across the Strip. Polls show that Hamas’s previously elevated support among West Bank Arabs is also down. Striking the iron while it’s hot, Abbas apparently longs to retake center stage. Can he?

Diminishing support for Hamas is yet to match the contempt Arabs feel toward Abbas himself. Hamas considers him irrelevant for what it calls “the resistance.”

[Meanwhile], Abbas is yet to condemn Hamas’s October 7 massacre. His recent announcement of ending alms for terror is a ruse.

Abbas, it’s worth noting, hasn’t saved all his epithets for Hamas. He also twice said of the Americans, “may their fathers be cursed.” Of course, after a long career of anti-Semitic incitement, Abbas can’t be expected to have a moral awakening. Nor is there much incentive for him to fake one. But, like the protests in Gaza, Abbas’s recent diatribe is a sign that Hamas is perceived as weak and that its stock is sinking.