In light of the renewed offensive, a Palestinian official told Israeli reporters that Hamas is now willing to soften its terms for a cease-fire deal somewhat. Thus Jerusalem again faces the near-impossible decision of what compromises it is willing to make to free the 24 hostages thought still to be alive in Gaza, and the bodies of the 25 others. Many Israelis already believe the government made a mistake by returning to fighting rather than by accepting whatever deal was available. Hillel Frisch cautions against such an approach:

Paying “any cost” for the hostages’ release effectively means accepting Hamas’s continued effective control over Gaza, accompanied by the lifting of the blockade and the extensive release of Palestinian terrorists from prison. Hamas would be able to portray such an outcome as a significant achievement and as proof of the legitimacy of the jihadist project, despite the many casualties both the terror organization and the Gaza population have suffered and the extensive damage to Gaza’s infrastructure.

On February 23, just over a month after signing the agreement (on January 19), we received a stark reminder of the consequences of relinquishing the Netzarim corridor, which divided the Strip into two, and enabled residents of Gaza City and the northern Gaza Strip to return to their homes. For the first time since the ground operation began in late October 2023, the northern Gaza envelope was placed on its highest alert level amid concerns over a potential terrorist infiltration.

The reasons for this are easy to understand. After signing the agreement, tens of thousands moved unhindered along the coastal road northward on foot and in carts. Hundreds no doubt were terrorists whose weapons were concealed in bags and cooking-gas cylinders. On the other route—the Salah al-Din Road intended for vehicle passage—the monitoring carried out by American inspectors was clearly insufficient.

An important document published by Al Jazeera and by Hamas websites lists seven supposed strategic achievements by Hamas. According to the document, the foremost achievement is the release of senior prisoners, especially those sentenced to life imprisonment. . . . Hamas’s true objective is to rebuild its leadership and senior command ranks—severely weakened during the conflict—by drawing from this substantial and “high-caliber” pool of released prisoners.

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.