A Cease-fire Between Israel and Hamas Today, and in 2014 |
The last time fighting got this deadly in Gaza, the small strip of territory that borders Israel, Egypt and the Mediterranean Sea, it lasted 50 days and killed more than 2,300 people, the majority of them Palestinian civilians. Israel and the Palestinian militants who control Gaza agreed to, and then broke, at least eight cease-fire agreements before the one that stuck, in late August 2014. |
This round, the conflagration at first seemed to intensify even faster, with violence between Israelis and Palestinians not only erupting in Gaza but also spinning off into confrontations between Jewish and Arab mobs within Israel and sparking protests in the West Bank to which the Israeli military responded with lethal force. |
So far in the clashes, Israeli airstrikes have killed more than 200 Palestinians, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. Hamas rocket attacks have killed more than a dozen people in Israel, according to the Israeli authorities. |
 | | Celebrations in Gaza City early Friday after a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas came into effect.Samar Abu Elouf for The New York Times |
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The sirens across southern Israel were silent early Friday, and the sound of bombs bursting in Gaza City was replaced by celebratory gunfire as a fragile cease-fire went into effect. |
Such agreements can be short-lived, diplomats and Middle East experts cautioned, even as the deal was reached Thursday. The fighting may end with this one cease-fire, or perhaps a series of truces leading to one. |
That was the track taken at Secretary of State John Kerry's urging in 2014, when he and other international diplomats pushed for Israel and Hamas to lay down their arms for a day or few days at a time to allow negotiators to discuss and finalize the terms of a longer-lasting peace. |
The goal, Mr. Kerry said at the time, was to lay out a "sustainable process going forward" that would address some of the Palestinians' long-held demands and finally lay to rest a war that seemed to erupt every few years, killing more people without meaningful gains on either side. |
"Any peace effort that does not tackle the root causes of the crisis will do little more than set the stage for the next cycle of violence," the United Nations secretary-general at the time, Ban-Ki Moon, warned. |
That, of course, is exactly what happened. |
Although guns fired in celebration across Gaza when the final cease-fire of 2014 was announced, the terms of the agreement, brokered by Egypt, nearly replicated what the two sides had negotiated at the end of the previous hostilities in 2012. Israel was to allow more humanitarian aid and construction materials to cross into Gaza and permit Gazans to fish in a larger area off the coast. |
Longer term, Israel wanted to discuss the demilitarization of Gaza, which it regards as little more than a launchpad for attacks on Israel, while Hamas demanded an airport and seaport in Gaza. But neither ever occurred, and the blockade of Gaza by Israel and Egypt has continued since then, keeping its roughly two million residents "caged in a toxic slum from birth to death," as a top United Nations human rights official put it in 2018. |
If neither side achieved much, why did they agree to a cease-fire? Aside from the international pressure and the mounting civilian toll, Israel was reluctant to drag out the fighting when its population was already exhausted with the rocket barrages, the deaths of soldiers and the psychological impact of Hamas militants penetrating the country via tunnels. Gaza was in a desperate situation, with much of the strip leveled and, by the end, more than 1,462 civilians dead, according to the United Nations. |
Ultimately, 2,251 Palestinians died, according to the United Nations, while Israel lost 67 soldiers and six civilians. The fighting involved more than 6,000 Israeli airstrikes and more than 6,600 rockets and mortars from Gaza militants. |
 | | A home in Ashkelon in southern Israel on Thursday that was damaged in a rocket attack from Gaza.Dan Balilty for The New York Times |
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This time, growing international outrage over the deaths, especially in Gaza, appeared to be playing a part in driving the sides toward a cease-fire. (The Israeli populace, however, seems not yet to have tired of this war: 72 percent of Israelis said in a survey published by Israel's Channel 12 on Thursday that Israel should continue its operation in Gaza.) |
As in 2014, American, Egyptian and other regional officials mediated, while the Europeans, led by France, pushed for a Security Council resolution demanding a cease-fire. |
But even with the pause in fighting, the underlying causes of the conflict have not been resolved. Both Gazans and Israelis seem doomed to more death and destruction — if not now, then, unless their grievances are addressed, again in the future. |
| Vivian Yee is the Cairo bureau chief, covering politics, society and culture in the Middle East and North Africa. |
Afghan War Casualty Report: May 2021 |
 | | Afghan commandos who were accompanied by a New York Times reporter and photographer on a recent mission to the front line in Lashkar Gah.Jim Huylebroek for The New York Times |
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Here are five articles from The Times that you might have missed. |
 | | A Palestinian boy in front of the ruins of his house in Gaza City last Friday after it was destroyed in an Israeli airstrike.Samar Abu Elouf for The New York Times |
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"They weren't holding weapons, they weren't firing rockets and they weren't harming anyone." Civilians paid an especially high price in the latest round of violence between Israel and Hamas, raising urgent questions about which military actions are legal, what war crimes are being committed and who, if anyone, will be held to account. [Read the article.] |
"We have no option but to die." For one New York Times reporter, witnessing the rounds of violence had become a familiar experience. Not this time. [Read the article.] |
"It is a perfect storm of people empowered to use their own names and phone numbers to openly call for violence." Since violence between Israelis and Palestinians escalated last week, at least 100 new WhatsApp groups formed for the purpose of committing violence against Palestinians, according to an analysis by The Times and an Israeli watchdog group. [Read the article.] |
"The girls there, they stay indoors all day. They can't even visit relatives." Girls have been forced out of education in Taliban-controlled areas of Afghanistan, and schooling could come to an end for many more. Two districts offer a glimpse into life under the Taliban if the collapse of government military forces continues. [Read the article.] |
"Now I feel that I can shout from the roofs, I'm still here, the Nazis didn't get me." Researchers using enhanced, rare, historic footage of a transport to a Nazi death camp have been able to identify some passengers, including children who survived. [Read the article.] |
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