Peace, pending disaster

The ceasefire between Israel and Hamas is trembling. On the border, Israeli armored vehicles were attacked, a “clear violation,” Israel calls it, of a truce brokered with painstaking, almost naïve, care.

Israeli authorities are being briefed continuously. Every report parsed. The implications assessed.

The decisions being made now are measured, cautious: How much retaliation, how much restraint, how much warning?

The warnings, of course, had already come. The United States had issued statements hours earlier, signals, Israel says, about internal violations of the truce and warnings about Hamas’ treatment of its own civilians.

And yet Israel’s breach reports are not hypothetical. Over the last several days, Israeli intelligence says Hamas has executed, tortured and abducted scores of Palestinian civilians in Gaza.

Videos circulate, civilians chained, dragged, shot, some on cars, others dragged down the streets.

All of this unfolds under the long shadow of the Trump-brokered peace plan, a fragile diplomatic architecture formally embraced by Israel and its allied Arab states, Qatar, Turkey, and the Palestinian Authority alike, each publicly nodding to its promise of stability yet still reckoning with the chaos and violence rippling through Palestine.

The first stage: return hostages in exchange for released prisoners. Simple in writing. Complicated, impossible, bloody in reality.

Hamas has already failed to comply. Several hostages remain missing. The return of bodies, the dead, reminds Israel and the world that every negotiation is provisional, with human cost baked in.

Israel’s message is as clear as it is unflinching: the truce is conditional, temporary, dependent entirely on Hamas’ behavior.

Deputy Foreign Minister Sharren Haskel lays it out in three prongs: education, economic reconstruction, and oversight. On one hand, a lifeline for Gaza’s civilians; on the other, a hedge against militants who still control the streets.

“Oversight,” she told the DAILY TRIBUNE, “is absolute. Every shekel must reach its intended hands. Each diversion to terror, no matter how small, imperils the fragile hope that a society can rebuild while under siege.”

UN reports cited by Israeli officials claim 90 percent of humanitarian goods entering Gaza never reached civilians.

Ninety percent. It’s a hazard, a structural vulnerability. Every dollar unaccounted for is a weapon. Every misstep, a potential repeat of 7 October.

And Hamas’ leadership? Exiled. In Qatar. In Turkey. Wealthy. Insulated. Able to orchestrate violence from comfortable villas while the world monitors the ruins of Gaza.

Their charter calls for Israel’s obliteration, a literal public promise. Conventional negotiation? Futile. No. Israel repeatedly stresses that Hamas is not a conventional government but a terrorist organization whose long-term objectives are incompatible with peace.

The United States, of course, remains Israel’s central lever. Haskel emphasizes the stabilizing effect of the personal rapport between Prime Minister Netanyahu and former US President Donald Trump.

Other international actors, Europeans and Arab states, are being called upon to pressure Hamas. Missteps, ambiguous statements, or concessions perceived as weakness, Israel warns, embolden the organization and erode a fragile truce.

At its core, this ceasefire is not peace but a tenuous, brittle pause. Israel undertakes immediate and long-term measures to prevent another 7 October.

Civilians, foreign workers, dead, abducted, recovery is starting now. Slowly. Painstakingly. Security protocols are being reevaluated. Psychological care is being offered. But the outcome depends less on Israel’s preparation than on Hamas’ willingness or inability to comply.

Without oversight, without teeth, without the world leaning hard on them, compliance is a joke. Israel has always chosen negotiation, the grind of diplomacy, the patience it demands.

And yet the Middle East teaches the same brutal lesson: You cannot bargain with those whose charter calls for your annihilation, whose leaders sit insulated and untouched while violence rolls outward.

Peace here? A line in the sand, waiting, always, for the next storm.