In Gaza, meanwhile, anti-Hamas protests have continued and even appear to have intensified. Neomi Neumann and Nikhil Samuel provide some important analysis:

Even if the demonstrations do not achieve the (currently unlikely) goal of undermining Hamas rule in Gaza, they have broken—or at least cracked—the barrier of fear surrounding the group. They also reflect emerging changes in Gaza’s public discourse, with growing legitimacy accorded to those who advocate ending the war and challenging Hamas’s image as the people’s sole representative.

Outwardly, this shift could push Hamas to become more sensitive to public grievances and acknowledge some degree of responsibility for conditions in Gaza. Internally, it may give greater weight to voices within Hamas who advocate a more flexible stance in the stalled negotiations over planning and implementing phase two of the cease-fire and exchanging hostages and prisoners.

The protests could also give outside mediators leverage to intensify pressure on Hamas—particularly Egypt, whom some protesters have asked to assume administrative responsibility in Gaza. Cairo is already amenable to taking action of some sort inside the Strip, if only to sidestep those who would pressure Egypt into opening its border and providing safe haven to Palestinian refugees displaced by the renewed warfare.

While I’ve seen much speculation—some reasonable and well informed, some quite the opposite—about why Jerusalem chose Friday morning to begin its campaign against Iran, the most obvious explanation seems to be the most convincing. First, 60 days had passed since President Trump warned that Tehran had 60 days to reach an agreement with the U.S. over its nuclear program. Second, Israeli intelligence was convinced that Iran was too close to developing nuclear weapons to delay military action any longer. Edward Luttwak explains why Israel was wise to attack:

Iran was adding more and more centrifuges in increasingly vast facilities at enormous expense, which made no sense at all if the aim was to generate energy. . . . It might be hoped that Israel’s own nuclear weapons could deter an Iranian nuclear attack against its own territory. But a nuclear Iran would dominate the entire Middle East, including Egypt, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain, with which Israel has full diplomatic relations, as well as Saudi Arabia with which Israel hopes to have full relations in the near future.

Luttwak also considers the military feats the IDF and Mossad have accomplished in the past few days:

To reach all [its] targets, Israel had to deal with the range-payload problem that its air force first overcame in 1967, when it destroyed the air forces of three Arab states in a single day. . . . This time, too, impossible solutions were found for the range problem, including the use of 65-year-old airliners converted into tankers (Boeing is years later in delivering its own). To be able to use its short-range F-16s, Israel developed the “Rampage” air-launched missile, which flies upward on a ballistic trajectory, gaining range by gliding down to the target. That should make accuracy impossible—but once again, Israeli developers overcame the odds.