Hamas provoked Israel relentlessly until at long last it persuaded Israeli leaders to attack Gaza. Anyone surprised that Israel launched a massive attack has simply not been paying attention. Hamas wanted this war. Maybe not at this precise moment, maybe not with this intensity. But the Iran-backed rulers of Gaza, whose reason for being is to destroy Israel, need war to remain relevant and bolster their popular support.

Hamas gambled, and it may yet obtain everything it wanted from this confrontation. Tragically for the Palestinians living under Hamas rule, they continue to pay the most painful price. Predictably, Israel will be hit not only with a continuing barrage of rockets from Gaza, but also with international condemnation.

The harrowing images of mayhem and death obscure Israel's efforts to avoid civilian casualties. Until now, the overwhelming majority of the dead have been armed, even uniformed, Hamas security forces. Hamas has said as much. But Hamas hides in civilian areas and attacks Israel from crowded places. Israel has aimed exclusively at weapons storage, launching and transportations sites, including smuggling tunnels, as well as arms labs such as the well-known ones in the Islamic University of Gaza, which were attacked at night to avoid killing students.

While Hamas leaders hide, fearing for their lives, they urge their people to fight to the death and help them achieve that goal by using them as human shields after they taunt Israel. It's a tried and proven strategy.

For years, Palestinians in Gaza have attacked Israeli civilians, making life in southern Israel unlivable. When Israel withdrew its forces from Gaza, the attacks only intensified. In 2008 alone, more than a thousand rockets smashed into Israel before this conflict started. After Egypt mediated a shaky cease-fire between the sides earlier this year, the rocket attacks slowed but never stopped.

Then, less than two weeks ago, Hamas announced the truce's end and escalated the attacks. As many as 80 rockets each day targeted Israeli children, hospitals, schools and businesses. Israel all but begged the Iran-backed Hamas to stop. A week ago last Thursday, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert went on al-Arabiya, an Arabic language television, appealing to Hamas one last time to stop.

Hamas leaders, particularly those living in the safety of exile, such as Khaled Mashal in Damascus, needed a confrontation. (Leaders inside Gaza had mixed feelings about ending the truce.)

On both sides, the experience of the last big confrontation, the war between Israel and Lebanon-based Hezbollah in 2006, shapes the current conflict. Hamas would like nothing more than to emerge from this trial the way Hezbollah did: battered, but more politically powerful than ever just for having taken on Israel and survived.

In 2006, Israel said it wanted to destroy Hezbollah. Now, the goals are much more modest. Israel wants Hamas to stop attacking its citizens. Anyone who has visited Israel's south, and the tragically iconic town of Sderot, under fire since 2001, knows the dilemma for Israeli leaders.

A recent visit to Sderot found a population seething with anger at the government's inability or unwillingness to defend its own citizens. "What would the U.S. do," one angry father asked me, as he held his 3-year-old daughter in his arms, "if Mexico launched rockets at San Antonio every single day -- what would any country do?"

Barack Obama visited Sderot last year. He too spoke as a father, saying that if his daughters lived the way the children of Sderot do, he would do "everything in my power" to stop the assaults.

The pressure on Israeli political leaders to take action grew every day. Hamas knew this. But Israelis were reluctant to launch an all-out assault because it would provide no easy solutions. Israel does not want to reoccupy the Gaza strip.

How do you define victory in this new war? Hamas will almost certainly survive, and that alone will constitute a victory for the organization. International condemnation of Israel will also mean victory for Hamas. Arab countries despise Hamas, and even the Palestinian Authority has blamed Hamas for this disaster. But the Arab public is now standing with the Islamic resistance -- and that is a victory for Hamas.

For Israel, victory can only be partial. If it stops the fighting with a strong cease-fire agreement and with Hamas' ability to hit Israel diminished, it will have achieved its goals. But, on balance, that may not be enough to have made this war worth the cost in human life and international opprobrium.

Only if Palestinians, and the rest of the world, understand how much Hamas is sabotaging the chances of peace, will this conflict have proven worth its awful cost.