Deal or No Deal?

Making sense of the noise around the Israel-Hamas ceasefire

The rhetoric around a possible ceasefire in Gaza has been head-spinning in the last week. First, President Biden claimed that Israel had accepted a ceasefire proposal and the ball was in Hamas’ court. Next, political chatter from Israel suggested that they had not, in fact, agreed to any proposal. Hamas today rejected any concept of a ceasefire that is not on a permanent basis. Now, in the last 24 hours, the US Department of State still claim that Hamas is the only thing standing in the way of the conclusion of hostilities in Gaza. The US are threatening to pass a UN Security Council resolution to try and compel Hamas to agree - but the noise from Israel about rejection remains the same.

So what the hell is going on? Let us look at each actor in turn (the USA, Israel and Hamas) and try to draw some initial conclusions. But first of all, though, what is the deal on the table?