Wednesday’s scene of rocket fire, sirens and airstrikes over Israeli and Gaza skies was a familiar one. Israel and Hamas, staying true to the “eye-for-an-eye” law that has governed this land for centuries, are preparing their ranks for the worst. Yet both are plainly reluctant to escalate the situation to all-out war.

It is easy to boil down this latest round of Palestinian-Israeli fighting to a conflict between Israel and Hamas, as the Israeli leadership did when it immediately held Hamas responsible for the June 12 kidnapping and killing of three Israeli teenagers in the West Bank that triggered this flare-up. But there are still several details to the current imbroglio that don’t quite fit the usual paradigm and thus raise questions about Hamas’ influence over the wider Palestinian militant scene.

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