The security situation on Israel’s southern border with the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip deteriorated sharply over the weekend, with Palestinian terror groups led by Hamas launching more than one hundred rockets and mortars at Israeli civilians Saturday and into Monday. The attacks, which target more than one millions Israelis, are part of an escalation that began when Palestinians fired an anti-tank missile at an Israeli jeep traveling along Israel’s border with the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip on Saturday. The initial attack triggered Israeli tank fire against the source of the missile and against pre-set military targets inside the Gaza Strip, killing four Palestinians and wounding another 25, and the on-going rocket fire threatens to force a ground war. TIP’s coverage of the weekend escalation, including views from U.S.-based military analysts and Israeli officials about the significance of Palestinian anti-tank weaponry, is available online here. A more extensive TIP analysis of Hamas’s months-long escalatory strategy, available online here, outlines multiple parallels between Hamas’s strategy in 2008 and its strategy in recent months. The similarities have raised concerns that the Iranian-backed terror group is trying to drag Jerusalem into a diplomatically costly ground war in the Gaza Strip.