Both have won: will the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas last? – Click

A ceasefire was reached on Friday, 21 May, in the new phase of the escalation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The big question is – will it last?

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Forecasting the future in foreign policy analysis is extremely ungrateful. Many commentators often make predictions that, due to various circumstances (eg national reluctance to disclose all information or deliberate misleading the public) turn out to be false. I have not been an exception in this respect among my brothers and sisters in the profession, and I still faced this problem on Thursday.

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Namely, despite ongoing mediation attempts and indications that a ceasefire could soon be concluded between Israel and the terrorist group Hamas, I continued to believe that the escalation ceiling has still not been reached. Consequently, it is too early to talk about identifying any way to de-escalate. This was prompted by the fact that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, shortly after talking to US President Joe Biden (in which Biden called on him to de-escalate the situation), expressed his readiness to continue the military operation until Israel’s “security goals” were met. It also seemed logical that this message of Netanyahu was accompanied the next day by an exchange of fire between the two sides, which seemed only to continue the military course that had already begun. In the end, however, the commentators who urged Egypt’s statements on both sides to agree to a ceasefire and its possibility of its entry into force on Friday were taken more seriously.

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