The eight-day conflict between Hamas and Israel has ended in a cease-fire. Although shorter than Operation Cast Lead in 2008-09, the latest Israeli Operation Pillar of Defense was nevertheless devastating. Israeli naval and air bombardments killed 165 and wounded 1,200 Palestinians, while damage to Gaza’s infrastructure amounted to $1.2 billion. The rockets fired from Gaza resulted in five Israeli deaths and scores wounded.

Israel did not achieve the goal it had publicly declared: the destruction of Hamas’s rocket capability. Hamas and other Palestinian militant organizations were able to continue rocket attacks into Israel, reaching further targets with neighborhoods in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem for the first time. The latest Israeli failure was replayed during the 33-day war with Hezbollah in 2006 and the 22-days war with Hamas in 2008-9 respectively. 

While seemingly a repetition of past conflicts, the latest Israeli-Hamas duel occurred in a fundamentally different regional reality that will have have major repercussions for Israel and Arab leaders, while Iran stands to gain the most.

First, Iranian Speaker of Parliament Ali Larijani acknowledged: "We are proud to defend the people of Palestine and Hamas ... and that our assistance to them has been both financial and military." Since the 1979 Iranian revolution, Iran has earnestly provided political, ideological and financial support to the Palestinian resistance against Israeli occupation. This was the first time that Tehran confirmed it is providing military assistance to the Palestinians.