On Feb. 7, at least two members of the Israeli Cabinet announced that a new round of fighting between Israel and Hamas can be expected very soon, perhaps even as early as spring. The first was retired Maj. Gen. Yoav Galant (Kulanu), former commander of the Southern Command, who now serves as the minister of housing. The second was the chairman of HaBayit HaYehudi, Minister of Education Naftali Bennett.

These statements followed several large-scale attacks on Hamas targets, launched in response to a single rocket fired by a Salafi group, which landed in an open field in southern Israel on Feb. 6. While it is true that Israel has a "no containment" policy in response to every shot fired at it from Gaza, it seems as if Israel's aggressive responses have been taken up a notch ever since the appointment of current Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman, and they are now disproportional. Israel no longer makes do with sporadic fire at empty positions. It now collects a steep price from Hamas for every rocket that some ephemeral group or other manages to fire at it. These attacks are aimed at strategic targets such as tunnels, special weapons depots and various security infrastructures. However, the resulting paradox is that Salafi groups, which challenge the Hamas leadership, have found a way to cause Hamas harm. All they have to do is fire at Israel and wait for the outcome.

The Israeli approach is understandable. It is intended to prevent the renewal of the phenomenon of "dribbling," or in other words, steady but irregular rocket fire against Israel, which, for years, has introduced terror into the day-to-day lives of hundreds of thousands of Israelis living in the south. This time, however, it seems that these last developments are hiding other processes, strategic ones, which could lead the parties to yet another round of fighting, some three years after the end of the last round (Operation Protective Edge, 2014).

The underpinning of this equation is the dire state of the population in Gaza. A United Nations report concluded that Gaza will be unfit for human habitation by 2020. The electric power supply is completely disrupted, the water is very close to being declared undrinkable, unemployment is sky high and efforts at renovation and rehabilitation have been delayed. All of this has resulted in assessments by Israeli intelligence that Hamas could be compelled to take the same steps it took three years ago and attempt to break through this dead end by setting off a major explosion.