Just ten days into a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas, initial relief is rapidly giving way to a grim acknowledgment of the truce’s instability. It’s becoming increasingly clear that continuous outside intervention will be essential not only to maintain this fragile peace but also to achieve any further progress.
A fresh wave of violence on Sunday starkly illustrated the immense challenges ahead for reaching a broader agreement in Gaza. Both sides have been quick to accuse the other of violating the terms of the truce.
The Israeli military reported that two Israeli soldiers were killed and another wounded when Palestinian militants fired an anti-tank missile at an army vehicle. This attack occurred in Rafah, southern Gaza, on the Israeli-controlled side of the cease-fire line, which Israel immediately condemned as a blatant breach of the agreement. Hamas officials, however, swiftly denied any involvement.
Israel reacted with a swift and powerful bombardment of what it identified as Hamas targets. Gaza officials reported that 44 Palestinians were killed across the territory on Sunday. Initially, Israel declared an indefinite halt to humanitarian aid supplies for the devastated region, though it later clarified that aid deliveries would only be paused until its bombardment concluded. By Monday afternoon, relief agencies confirmed that aid flow had resumed to normal levels.
Bezalel Smotrich, a far-right member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s governing coalition, vocally demanded an immediate and open-ended resumption of Israel’s military campaign against Hamas, proclaiming “War!” in a social media post.
However, the brief yet intense Israeli military response, coupled with the retraction of the threat to cut off aid to Gaza, suggested a significant restraining influence from U.S. officials, according to analysts.
Indeed, Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff, prominent envoys for President Trump in the Middle East, arrived in Israel on Monday to advance the peace plan, a U.S. Embassy spokeswoman confirmed. Furthermore, Mr. Netanyahu announced that Vice President JD Vance would also visit Israel on Tuesday on behalf of President Trump.
“We will discuss primarily two matters,” Mr. Netanyahu stated during an address to the Israeli Parliament on Monday: “the security challenges before us, and the diplomatic opportunities before us.”
Vice President JD Vance had indicated late Sunday that he too might travel to Israel in the coming days.
“He’s not coming to jointly command Israeli strikes on Hamas,” observed Shira Efron, an Israeli analyst at RAND, regarding the vice president’s role.
Even Mr. Netanyahu’s right-wing allies accused him of succumbing to pressure from the Trump administration, a criticism not heard for the first time. “Enough with the folding,” Itamar Ben-Gvir, a far-right minister, wrote on a social media platform.
Sunday’s flare-up marked the most intense period of Israeli attacks on Gaza since the delicate cease-fire began. Other incidents have also disrupted the calm. The Israeli military reported last week that it had fired upon a vehicle in northern Gaza, claiming it had crossed the ‘yellow line’ – a demarcation zone where Israeli forces withdrew after the cease-fire. Nine individuals, including children, were reportedly killed, according to Gazan officials.
“Israelis are truly outraged about the killing of two soldiers, but it’s not as if there haven’t been civilian deaths in Gaza over the past week,” Ms. Efron noted. “Both sides possess pretexts to claim the cease-fire has been violated. What sustains the negotiation is the influence exerted by Trump and the mediators.”
The pressure isn’t solely on the Israeli government. After Hamas delivered the bodies of only four hostages last Monday (out of 28 believed to be held in Gaza), mediators from Egypt, Qatar, and Turkey shared Israeli intelligence regarding the whereabouts of others. This prompted the militant group to recover more, U.S. officials confirmed. By Sunday, Hamas had returned the remains of 12 captives.
As Hamas distanced itself from the Rafah attack, the group’s military wing reiterated its “full commitment” to implementing the cease-fire. They even disclosed that they had lost contact with their fighters in Rafah in March and were unsure if any were still alive.
This admission highlighted a critical aspect of the cease-fire’s fragility: if Hamas cannot control all its fighting units, its ability to fully enforce its side of the agreement becomes questionable, which in turn makes a full Israeli withdrawal less likely.
The successful return of all living hostages has also given the Israeli military greater freedom to retaliate against Hamas more aggressively, whenever and wherever it chooses, without the previous concern of harming its own citizens, explained Tamir Hayman, a former head of Israeli military intelligence who now leads the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv.
Although Sunday’s violence appeared to be a contained incident, several analysts predict more such rounds of conflict are likely to follow.
Michael Milshtein, an analyst at the Moshe Dayan Center at Tel Aviv University and a former Israeli military expert on Palestinian affairs, suggested that Hamas would likely continue to test Israel’s responses. He also pointed out that the ‘yellow line’ separating Israeli- and Hamas-held territories remains unmarked, making it difficult for Gaza residents to respect.
“Things are very unclear, very fragile and sensitive,” Mr. Milshtein noted. “I’m afraid that it will lead us during the coming weeks to a kind of attrition — almost everyday violations, clashes and crises, whether big or more limited. And it will be an ongoing challenge.”
Still, Israeli analysts emphasized that the challenge of maintaining the cease-fire pales in comparison to the difficulty of advancing the Trump peace plan. This is especially true given that the plan’s demand for Hamas to disarm effectively requires the group to abandon its core ideology of armed resistance.
Mr. Hayman added that Hamas is actively seeking to instill fear and reassert its dominance in Gaza, citing the recent executions of eight rivals by Hamas militants on a crowded Gaza City street.
“By doing that, they’re stronger, and it creates much more difficulties when you’re trying to demilitarize them,” Mr. Hayman argued. “The appetite by Arab or Western countries to be deeply involved in demilitarization is decreasing by the hour.”
Mr. Milshtein concluded that the past week delivered an unwelcome lesson to Israelis about Hamas. “It’s very hard for many Israelis to admit, but they weren’t defeated,” he said. “They still exist, and they’re the dominant player in Gaza.”
Despite these grim assessments, some Palestinian analysts suggest that Hamas appears eager to uphold the cease-fire and may even be prepared to offer more concessions to ensure the war’s end and the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza.
“Hamas wants to come down the tree, but in a dignified way,” remarked Mohammed al-Astal, an analyst in Gaza. “It needs an honorable exit ramp.”
Mr. al-Astal stated that Hamas would resist any attempts by Mr. Netanyahu to disarm the group in a humiliating manner. However, he suggested that if Hamas were offered a chance to quietly relinquish power while maintaining some role in Gaza, it might pursue that avenue. He even speculated that the group could be persuaded to hand over its weapons to another Palestinian entity.
“It knows it has no other options,” Mr. al-Astal concluded. “It has been squeezed both inside and outside Gaza.”
Adam Rasgon, Aaron Boxerman, and Johnatan Reiss contributed reporting.