What began on June 12 at the junction outside Alon Shvut, in the Etzion bloc of the West Bank, with the kidnapping and killing of three Israeli teenagers, may have concluded at the nearby settlement of Alon Shvut, where the last rocket fired by Hamas from Gaza — minutes before the ceasefire came into force on Tuesday morning — hit the earth

One long line connects that abduction-murder with the descent into conflict that Hamas deliberately instigated against Israel from Gaza. The Islamist organization wanted to escalate the situation against Israel, and to a certain extent, against the Palestinian Authority, in order to boost its standing among the Palestinian and wider Arab public and to ensure the economic survival of its rule in Gaza.

It is of course too early to determine whether the current ceasefire will prove longer-lasting than its predecessors. Predictably, in the last few minutes before 8 a.m., Hamas launched rocket salvos in numerous directions. One rocket landed in the Palestinian city of Beit Sahour, near Bethlehem. Apparently nothing had changed.

Nonetheless, the announcement of a ceasefire by the Middle East’s responsible adult, Egypt — this time in consultation with Hamas and Islamic Jihad, rather than unilaterally — may indicate a greater likelihood of success. The Egyptians this time did one thing differently from three weeks ago, when their ceasefire proposal was rejected by Hamas — they brought Hamas representatives to Cairo, and gave the rulers of Gaza the sense that Cairo was speaking to them rather than spitting in their faces. Furthermore, the fact that all Palestinian factions accepted the Egyptian framework, and abandoned the Qatar-Turkey channel, marks a significant victory for Egypt in the struggle for regional primacy, and to some extent makes it more difficult for Hamas to evade ending the conflict.

The critical question for Hamas surrounds what it will manage to achieve in the indirect negotiations soon to get underway in Cairo between the Israeli delegation and the Palestinian delegation (with its Hamas and Islamic Jihad representatives). The very fact that Hamas accepted the Egyptian umbrella and the Cairo formula — providing for an immediate cessation of hostilities, and negotiations only after that — marked a humiliating defeat of sorts. For almost three weeks Hamas had insistently rejected the proposal for an unconditional ceasefire with its demands to be addressed only afterwards. But on Monday night, it changed course.
Read more the article in full at Times of Israel.