The differences There are some telling differences in the violence and its context this time, however. Militarily, Hamas claims to have improved its rocket capabilities. Israel has gradually improved and broadened its range of rocket defenses, notably Iron Dome. But Hamas, as far as can be assessed, no longer has the secret weapon it invested so much of Gaza’s scant resources in developing — its terrorist tunnels under the Israeli border. Israel’s underground barrier along the border would appear to have neutered that pernicious threat. Politically, Hamas is plainly widening its effort to eclipse Abbas’s Palestinian Authority as the main representative of the Palestinian people and cause. The escalation of hostilities has seemingly been triggered by Jerusalem-centered controversies, including the looming evictions of Palestinian families from the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood, and — most significantly — Hamas assertion of responsibility as the protector of the Al-Aqsa compound atop the Temple Mount. (Its Monday night rocket fire followed the expiration of its self-styled “ultimatum” demanding that Israel remove its security forces from the compound — the holiest place in Judaism, and site of the third-holiest shrine in Islam.) The Islamists, recognizing that Abbas canceled this month’s planned Palestinian parliamentary elections, and July’s presidential vote, because he knew he would lose, are seeking a victory nonetheless: rendering the PA irrelevant on the ground, having been denied the opportunity to do so at the ballot box.