Zoran Kusovac

Is­rael has warned that the war will spread to the ‘whole’ of Gaza. That could force oth­er na­tions to step in.

Me­di­a­tors are locked in hec­tic par­leys to ex­tend the pause in fight­ing, but it’s be­com­ing hard­er for Is­rael to agree.

Af­ter a tense de­lay on Sat­ur­day, the pause seems to be hold­ing. Will Is­rael and Hamas agree to ex­tend it?

Every­one stopped shoot­ing, but can emo­tion­al re­unions bring new un­der­stand­ing be­tween war­ring sides?

The truce has come into ef­fect. Its ex­e­cu­tion will fall on two fight­ing forces that have been try­ing to kill the oth­er.

Hamas can ben­e­fit mil­i­tar­i­ly from the am­bigu­ous pause deal with Is­rael, but as an op­por­tu­ni­ty rather than a ne­ces­si­ty.

A break in hos­til­i­ties could ben­e­fit Is­rael mil­i­tar­i­ly, even though it could hurt Prime Min­is­ter Ne­tanyahu po­lit­i­cal­ly.

Short of risk­ing an es­ca­la­tion, there’s only one rea­son­able way the US can ac­com­plish this — by tak­ing Iran’s help.

Is­rael has yet to of­fer ev­i­dence that Hamas is us­ing a net­work of tun­nels be­low the hos­pi­tal as a com­mand cen­tre.

Since Fri­day, the only Is­raeli col­umn that has moved is the one that at­tacked al-Shi­fa Hos­pi­tal on Wednes­day.