Having failed to accomplish much in the recent Gaza war, Hamas has begun a new strategy of cooperation with al-Qaeda-linked terrorist groups in the Sinai peninsula. This new collaboration allows it to participate in attacks on Egypt and creates an opportunity to smuggle weapons into Gaza from Sinai, mostly through tunnels. In response, however, Egypt has located and destroyed tunnels and closed off its border with Gaza. As a result, civil reconstruction is at a standstill and an increasingly isolated Hamas has turned to attacks in Jerusalem and its effort to take over the West Bank:

The dynamics that led to the long conflict this summer between Israel and Hamas have not disappeared, and neither has the jihadi terrorism that still seeps out of the Gaza Strip in all directions. Understanding this triangle of “Egypt-Gaza-Israel” is key to unlocking the significance of current regional events. The more that Gaza-linked terror groups threaten Egypt, the more the Egyptian government will seek to isolate and punish Hamas. A distressed Hamas, struggling to initiate reconstruction efforts, is more likely to try to break its isolation through a terrorist provocation against Israel, even if this attempt takes an indirect form through a proxy terror group.

On the same day the cease-fire went into effect along the Israel-Lebanon border, rebel forces launched an unexpected offensive, and within a few days captured much of Aleppo. This lightening advance originated in the northwestern part of the country, which has been relatively quiet over the past four years, since Bashar al-Assad effectively gave up on restoring control over the remaining rebel enclaves in the area. The fighting comes at an inopportune moment for the powers that Damascus has called on for help in the past: Russia is bogged down in Ukraine and Hizballah has been shattered.

But the situation is extremely complex. David Wurmser points to the dangers that lie ahead:

The desolation wrought on Hizballah by Israel, and the humiliation inflicted on Iran, has not only left the Iranian axis exposed to Israeli power and further withering. It has altered the strategic tectonics of the Middle East. The story is not just Iran anymore. The region is showing the first signs of tremendous geopolitical change. And the plates are beginning to move.

The removal of the religious-totalitarian tyranny of the Iranian regime remains the greatest strategic imperative in the region for the United States and its allies, foremost among whom stands Israel. . . . However, as Iran’s regime descends into the graveyard of history, it is important not to neglect the emergence of other, new threats. navigating the new reality taking shape.

The retreat of the Syrian Assad regime from Aleppo in the face of Turkish-backed, partly Islamist rebels made from remnants of Islamic State is an early skirmish in this new strategic reality. Aleppo is falling to the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS—a descendant of Nusra Front led by Abu Mohammed al-Julani, himself a graduate of al-Qaeda’s system and cobbled together of IS elements. Behind this force is the power of nearby Turkey.