Some analysts view the temporary truce between Israel and Hamas as a special opportunity while others consider it a stopgap measure for both sides as it is unlikely to halt a collision course.
Success for the status quo
The "tahadiyeh" (Arabic for temporary truce) proposed by Egyptian mediators to end rocket and mortar attacks on Israel and Israeli raids and air strikes in the coastal enclave went into effect at 6 A.M. local time (0300 GMT) on Thursday.
"It's a complicated issue ... from an Israeli perspective anytime that a Palestinian group or Arab country stops violence is a success for the status quo, not an Israeli victory," Professor Gerald Steinberg, Political Studies Department Chair at Bar Ilan University, told Xinhua.
"The longer the ceasefire lasts, the more it will be seen as an Israeli victory," he said in an interview with Xinhua.
He noted that a ceasefire with Hamas might follow a similar course of the one reached with the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO). "After 30 years even Yasser Arafat had to change his tactics," he said.
In addition, even a partial lifting of economic sanctions might give Gaza's 1.5 million inhabitants a taste of normalcy making it harder to reimpose war conditions, Steinberg said. "The question is to what extent will people in Gaza be willing to give up normal living conditions."
However, some other analysts agreed that the temporary truce is unlikely to halt a collision course and could derail progress made under the Road Map plan to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Win-win but fragile
Analysts said that both Israel and Hamas regarded the truce as a necessary step because Israel seeks to avoid a broad military operation which may lead to massive casualties in the densely-populated Gaza Strip, and Hamas needs time to recuperate its forces.
"It is difficult to predict the duration of this ceasefire. Hamas needs the time to build up its military capabilities, and when it feels that it no longer requires the ceasefire and that its military build-up is sufficient, it is likely to violate it," Dore Gold, President of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, told Xinhua.
He noted Hamas' careful choice of words, "tahadiyeh", not "hudna", which would infer a longer armistice. "Just the very choice of words indicates that Hamas has no intention of meeting the Quartet conditions," Gold said in an interview with Xinhua.
In 2006, the Quartet peacemakers, which consist of the UN, the European Union, the United States and Russia, established three preconditions to normalize relations with Hamas: disarming, recognizing Israel and rejecting violence as part of its organization's charter.
