On May 9, Israel initiated a direct attack on the senior commanders of Palestinian Islamic Jihad in Gaza while ignoring Hamas, its third such attack since November 2019. The operation was Israel’s response to an escalation of rocket and mortar fire by Palestinian Islamic Jihad, an escalation that was itself a response to the death of a senior member of the group’s West Bank branch while on hunger strike in an Israeli prison.  Hamas, the sovereign ruler of Gaza, preferred, as in the two previous bouts between Israel and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, to sit the fight out, choosing instead to maintain the ceasefire to which it agreed after Operation Guardian of the Walls in May 2021.