Welcome to Hell. That seems to be what’s shaping up in Gaza as Israel moves against Hamas with the backing President Trump vowed when he warned of Perdition. The attacks by Israel followed an American attack on the Houthis in Yemen. The president writes he’d hold Tehran responsible for “every shot fired by the Houthis.” The Iranians will “suffer the consequences,” he writes in a departure from President Biden’s McClellanism.*

Israel’s renewed assault on Gaza, widely condemned by the usual suspects as a departure from cease-fire agreements, received full backing from the White House. Hamas has used the lull in fighting to rearm, regroup, and reassert its oppression of Gazans. Hamas plays on Israel’s heart strings, manipulating and stretching out negotiations over the fate of remaining 59 hostages. Up to 24 are alive, according to Israeli intelligence assessments.

Europeans are appalled. Secretary General Guterres of the United Nations says he is “shocked.” Washington, though, says that Israel fully coordinated the Gaza strikes with the White House. Hamas “could have released hostages to extend the ceasefire but instead chose refusal and war,” the National Security Council’s spokesman, Brian Hughes, said earlier today. The actions in Yemen and Gaza suggest a wider American-Israeli Mideast strategy.

“What happened with the Houthis yesterday, what happened with our strike ought to inform as to where we stand with regard to terrorism and our tolerance level for terrorist actions,” Mr. Trump’s key Gaza negotiator, Steve Witkoff, told CNN on Sunday. “I would encourage Hamas to get much more sensible than how they have been.” What mostly impresses us is Mr. Trump’s holistic approach: Various Mideast skirmishes are but a part of a region-wide war. 

“This may be the closest military coordination between our 2 countries to date,” the Foundation for Defense of Democracies’ vice president, Jonathan Schanzer, writes in respect of America and Israel. He notes that “hammering 2 different Iranian proxies in unison is no minor thing. The regime in Iran should be concerned.” His comments are a marker of the Islamic Republic’s central role in this conflict. It is at the root of evil in the Mideast. 

A new study published by Israel’s Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center analyzes documents captured by the Israel Defense Forces in Gaza. The coordination between Hamas, the Islamist Revolutionary Guard Corps, and the Lebanon-based Hezbollah was much more extensive than what was known before  the war, the documents show. A  plan by Hamas to rid Israel of Jews received Tehran’s full backing, and Hezbollah would join in.    

The plan’s visionary, Yahya Sinwar, the leader of Hamas in Gaza, was killed in the war. Hezbollah’s commander, Hassan Nasrallah, was slain at Beirut, and his group is defanged. Iran’s air defenses are destroyed. IDF victories, though, are yet to end the threat. “In the long run, if Hamas recovers, it is not improbable that the movement could once again regard destroying Israel as a practical plan,” the Meir Amit study reckons.

The Mideast wars are reflected far beyond the immediate region. The Houthis’ siege on the Red Sea has global consequences, even as Europe and Arab states are hit harder than America. Meanwhile the Xi-Putin-Kim camarilla is watching closely the fate of their fourth partner, the Ayatollahs. America has a direct interest in the Mideast, a point marked in the Putin-Trump phone call today. Like a peace deal scorned in either place, it seems, Hell hath no fury. 

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*McClellanism refers to the military and political style of General George B. McClellan during the Civil War, characterized by caution and overestimation of enemy strength.