Two stories have caught my eye these last few days.

The first is that U.S. special forces fighting alongside the YPG in northern Syria were filmed wearing YPG insignia. The YPG is considered by NATO-ally Turkey to be a rebranded Syrian version of the PKK – an outlawed terrorist group, which is blacklisted by the U.S. and E.U amongst others. Turkey complained, and the debate highlights the new alliances in the fight against ISIS. This is not limited to Syria. In Iraq, the Al-Quds Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards is reportedly participating in the fighting in Fallujah where the coalition is supporting the ground offensive with air strikes. Saudi Arabia has raised an issue with this participation, but has stopped short of criticizing the coalition.

The prospect of defeating ISIS has adjusted who it is politically attractive to work with. In Syria, there seems to now be a race to snatch a victory against ISIS from Assad forces. In Iraq, it is the western acceptance of the entrenched Iranian influence in Iraqi national security – as long as it is working in the same direction.

The second story is the prospect of a new “summer war” in the Gaza strip that has been raised in the Israeli press. This comes with the unexpected appointment of hard-liner Avigdor Lieberman to the position of Israeli Defence Minister. Lieberman has long been pushing for the return of Israeli corpses held by Hamas since Operation Protective Edge, and, if he has a say in it, threatening the assassination of Hamas leader Ismael Haniyeh if it is not completed. Now he does have more of a say in it.

Spiraling tit-for-tat reprisals have lead to the previous conflicts in the strip. Of late however, we have not seen the types of rocket bombardments fired into Israel that prompted the main offensives in previous years. Egypt has been forcefully blocking tunnels from Rafah, and Hamas appears to be cooperating with the Egyptian regime. There is even talk in Israel about constructing an internationally-administered, offshore port for Gaza. Most importantly, another war in the Gaza strip is unlikely to draw the same types of rhetorical support from western leaders as it did at the beginning of the 2014 conflict, if the trigger event is the largely unprompted assassination of Haniyeh.

There have been three conflicts in the last 8 years, and the return of corpses is an emotive issue on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. At the same time, I think it unlikely that there will be a summer war under current conditions.