Israeli warplanes struck Hamas terror targets across Gaza early Monday and tensions were high along the northern border with Lebanon, where the IDF has been carrying out strikes against Hezbollah terrorist cells. 

Since Hamas began its rampage into southern Israeli communities on October 7, the heavily armed, Iran-backed terrorist group Hezbollah has fired missiles daily from southern Lebanon against IDF positions and towns in northern Israel.

According to Israeli press reports, in the past 24 hours the IDF attacked and destroyed eight of Hezbollah’s anti-tank and rocket squads. As volatile as things are in the north, the heat is on in Gaza, into which Israel suggests it will launch a ground offensive. Tanks and troops have been massed at the Gaza border, and Israel says it has stepped up airstrikes in order to reduce the risk to troops in the next stages. 

According to a report on Sunday in the New York Times, the White House wants Israel to delay a ground invasion. The rationale, according to the report, is to buy more time for hostage negotiations and help get more humanitarian aid into Gaza. Officials framed this as advice, not demands. 

Israel has carried out limited ground forays into Gaza, and on Sunday, Hamas said it had destroyed an Israeli tank and two armored bulldozers inside the territory it has ruled since 2007. The Israeli military said a soldier was killed and three others were wounded by an anti-tank missile during a raid inside Gaza.

The military said the raid was part of efforts to rescue hostages abducted in the October 7 attack. Hamas hopes to trade the captives for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel. After a lull of more than 14 hours, rocket sirens wailed once again at Ashkelon and at Zikim, an Israeli community that borders the Gaza Strip. There were no immediate reports of damage or injuries.

Despite all the dangerous regional permutations of a widening war, no fact is more gut wrenching or fraught with risk than the hostage crisis. On Monday morning the IDF’s spokesman, Rear Admiral  Daniel Hagari, said the Israeli military had  notified the families of 222 hostages that their loved ones are being held in the Gaza Strip. That number includes “quite a few” foreign nationals.

The number cited does not include Judith Raanan and her daughter Natalie, who were released by Hamas on Friday night. Mr. Hagari added that “we are working in all ways to free the hostages and bring them home.” In his statement Mr. Hagari also said that the IDF “is in the possession of at least 1,000 bodies of killed Hamas members.”

Fears that the war will widen have waxed as Israeli warplanes have struck targets in Syria and Lebanon in recent days. Prime Minister Netanyahu told troops in northern Israel on Sunday that if Hezbollah launches a war, “it will make the mistake of its life. We will cripple it with a force it cannot even imagine, and the consequences for it and the Lebanese state will be devastating.”

Hezbollah’s political movement is part of Lebanon’s fractious government, but its terrorist fighters are bankrolled by Tehran and operate outside the state’s control. In 2006, Israel heavily bombed Beirut’s airport and civilian infrastructure during a war with Hezbollah.

Although in the current threat environment it is almost impossible to make predictions about what the next week will bring, there are some signs that despite its bluster Tehran will stand down. Its foreign minister issued on October 15 something of an ultimatum when he said the United States would suffer “significant damages” if the Gaza war develops into a bigger conflict.

Just hours after that, though, Iran’s mission at the United Nations clarified that Iranian forces would not get involved unless Israel were to attack Iranian interests. By backing Hamas and Hezbollah, Iran is more less always playing with fire in the region. Yet there is still caution, stemming mainly  from a self-preservation instinct.

A new report from Reuters cites unnamed Iranian officials who said that “any major attack against a U.S.-backed Israel could exact a heavy toll on Iran and trigger public anger against the clerical rulers in a nation already mired in an economic crisis.”

Meanwhile, Israel’s military is describing the humanitarian situation in Gaza as “under control,” even as the UN called for 100 trucks a day to enter. Israel has not allowed any fuel to enter Gaza, where there has been a full power blackout for more than a week. 

The World Health Organization said seven hospitals in northern Gaza have been forced to shut down due to damage from strikes, lack of power and supplies, or Israeli evacuation orders. Israel is repeating its calls for persons to leave northern Gaza.

Israel’s distribution of its warnings have included dropping leaflets from the air. It estimates 700,000 have already fled. But hundreds of thousands remain. That could raise the risk of  civilian casualties in any ground offensive.

Secretary Blinken said Israel “can’t go back to the status quo” in which Hamas controls Gaza and is able to threaten it, but said Israel has “absolutely no intent” to govern Gaza itself.

“Something needs to be found that ensures that Hamas can’t do this again, but that also doesn’t revert to Israeli governance of Gaza,” the 71st secretary of state told NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday. “It’s something that needs to be worked on even as Israel is dealing with the current threat.”