If the fighting could have been confined to just Israel and Hamas, there still would have been a lot of death and destruction, but everyone knows that Hamas is no match for the IDF.  But if Hezbollah, Syria, Iran and the Palestinians in the West Bank all jump into the conflict, all of a sudden this becomes a war of national survival for Israel, and in such a scenario it is much more likely that weapons of mass destruction will be used.  So it should deeply alarm all of us that fighting has now erupted on multiple fronts.

On Sunday, IDF troops clashed with Hamas terrorists inside the Gaza Strip…

Hamas fighters and Israeli forces engaged in limited clashes inside Gaza on Sunday as the Israeli military ramped up airstrikes on the Palestinian enclave ahead of what its spokesperson described as the "next stage" of its war on the militant group.

Hamas claimed its fighters had destroyed two Israeli military bulldozers and a tank in an ambush near the Gazan city of Khan Younis, forcing Israeli troops to retreat without their vehicles. The Israel Defense Forces confirmed its forces had been operating inside Gaza during the incident, and said an IDF tank struck militants who had fired on its troops.

The episode appeared to be one of the first skirmishes between the two sides on the ground inside the strip since war broke out after Hamas' deadly October 7 attack on Israel which killed more than 1,400 people. On October 13, the IDF said it had carried out raids inside Gaza.