The Mark 84 is an American-made bomb that went into service during the Vietnam War. Weighing almost 1 metric ton, it produces a strong blast effect and disperses thousands of fragments over a one-kilometer radius. A shipment of some 1,800 of these bombs arrived in Israel on Sunday, February 16, from the United States, after being blocked for a long time by the administration of former president Joe Biden.

Perhaps this is what Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, was referring to when he spoke at a press conference on Saturday evening, following a meeting with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who was visiting Israel. "We have a common strategy," he said, adding that "we can't always share the details of that strategy with the public, including when the gates of hell will be opened, as they surely will if all our hostages are not released until the last one of them." Hamas still holds 73 hostages, at least 35 of whom are reported dead, according to the Israeli army.

Netanyahu, assured of the full support of the new US administration, repeated on Sunday that Israel had "decimated a large part of Hamas". Yet the Palestinian Islamist movement seems to be doing well, despite 16 months of relentless war that has pulverized most of the Gaza Strip. Thousands of its fighters parade around the enclave. Well-fed policemen in crisp blue uniforms appear at crossroads.

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