Egypt recently made the unusual decision to allow the head of the Hamas politburo, Ismail Haniyeh, to travel abroad. On Tuesday he was in Turkey, from where he is expected to travel to Qatar—these two countries being Hamas’s most reliable supporters—and then to Russia and Malaysia. Hamas’s other major patron, Iran, is conspicuously not on the itinerary. Shahar Klaiman speculates about the reasons for Cairo’s decision:

Russia was in favor of Egypt’s allowing Haniyeh to travel, having invited a Hamas delegation to visit in order to discuss reconciliation between it and Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah party, and Egypt wanted to please the Kremlin.

[Another] reason why Egypt allowed Haniyeh to take his trip lay in the realization that Hamas would never be able to make any breakthroughs in the region in light of Arab nations’ increasing openness toward normalizing relations with Israel, even if only behind the scenes. Therefore Egypt thought that Hamas would opt not to visit Iran so as not to arouse the ire of the Arab countries, [which are already growing increasingly hostile to the terrorist group].

Some Palestinians think that Hamas wants to preserve its foreign relations and even develop them, by having Arab and Muslim countries assist in various initiatives, due to the increased blockade measures on the Gaza Strip following the destruction of most of Hamas’s smuggling tunnels on the border. . . . Aside from the political benefits of his tour, Haniyeh is hoping to drum up funds for his organization, even if they are only temporary.

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.