Since Israel’s October 26 attack, Iran has been threatening retaliation, and recent reports suggesting it will strike soon, and may use deadlier weapons than the last, have led Israelis to restock their bomb shelters. Noah Rothman asks why Jerusalem isn’t considering a preemptive strike, especially if it has intelligence that something more than Iranian bluster is afoot:

If publicly available estimates of the damage Iran incurred as a result of Israel’s October 26 strikes are accurate, Iran has never been more vulnerable. Its radar and air-defense systems have been degraded substantially. . . . If Iran is planning to up the ante and conduct another multi-pronged attack on Israeli targets—and Israeli intelligence is confident that such an attack is imminent—Jerusalem is well within its rights to interdict that event preemptively.

One possibility, Rothman suggests, is that Tehran hasn’t yet made a firm decision as it is waiting for the results of the American elections “with bated breath.” But that fact only sharpens the question:

Israel is not obliged to wait around for an inevitable attack. It should see to its interests promptly and without regard for the composition of the American administration.

Robert Clark explains why the resumption of hostilities is both just and necessary:

These latest Israeli strikes come after weeks of consistent Palestinian provocation; they have repeatedly broken the terms of the cease-fire which they claimed they were so desperate for. There have been numerous [unsuccessful] bus bombings near Tel Aviv and Palestinian-instigated clashes in the West Bank. Fifty-nine Israeli hostages are still held in captivity.

In fact, Hamas and their Palestinian supporters . . . have always known that they can sit back, parade dead Israeli hostages live on social media, and receive hundreds of their own convicted terrorists and murderers back in return. They believed they could get away with the October 7 pogrom.

One hopes Hamas’s leaders will get the message. Meanwhile, many inside and outside Israel seem to believe that, by resuming the fighting, Jerusalem has given up on rescuing the remaining hostages. But, writes Ron Ben-Yishai, this assertion misunderstands the goals of the present campaign. “Experience within the IDF and Israeli intelligence,” Ben-Yishai writes, “has shown that such pressure is the most effective way to push Hamas toward flexibility.” He outlines two other aims:

The second objective was to signal to Hamas that Israel is not only targeting its military wing—the terror army that was the focus of previous phases of the war up until the last cease-fire—but also its governance structure. This was demonstrated by the targeted elimination of five senior officials from Hamas’s political and civilian administration. . . . The strikes also served as a message to mediators, particularly Egypt, that Israel opposes Hamas remaining in any governing or military capacity in post-war Gaza.

The third objective was to create intense military pressure, coordinated with the U.S., on all remaining elements of the Shiite “axis of resistance,” including Yemen’s Houthis, Hamas, and Iran.