Middle East newswires are humming with news flashes about ongoing Israeli-Hamas contacts, aiming to bring about a long-term truce in exchange for the economic rehabilitation of the Gaza Strip. Reports on the matter are sometimes conflicting. Nevertheless, we have yet to hear a clear denial from the Israeli government about such negotiations. Former Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman has accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu several times of "surrendering to terror," and rumors about such contacts have continued to spread in the Israeli media.

A well-informed source close to Netanyahu told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity that messages about an eventual truce deal are indeed being passed between the prime minister's and defense minister's offices and the Hamas leadership in Gaza — mostly indirectly through the Egyptian intelligence services, but also directly between Israeli and Palestinian security forces on the ground. Furthermore, the topic was also raised in the June 22 talks between Turkish and Israeli Foreign Ministry officials in Rome.

According to a senior official in the Palestinian Authority (PA) who asked that his name be withheld, the political leadership of Hamas inside and outside Gaza favors seriously exploring the possibility of a truce. Hamas, according to this source, is demanding the establishment of a Gaza international airport and harbor and also the around-the-clock opening of the crossings with Israel and Egypt for the movement of goods into Gaza in return for a long-term truce. The source, who visits Gaza regularly, said that there are still major gaps between the positions of Israel and Hamas, which rejects several Israeli demands. Any talk of missile disarmament or halting the construction of tunnels is taboo, as far as Hamas is concerned. In exchange for the Israeli request for the return of the bodies of the two Israel Defense Forces soldiers who died during the 2014 Gaza war, Hamas demands a prisoner exchange like the one that took place in 2011, when abducted soldier Gilad Shalit was released. On its side, Israel agrees only to a floating harbor that would be established offshore and to a more limited opening of the crossings. It also insists on the return of the remains of the two soldiers.

While the gaps between the two parties are apparently substantial, the picture that emerges from conversations with these sources is nevertheless one of a convergence of interests between Israel and Hamas. Hamas is interested in reconstructing Gaza economically to bolster its legitimacy among Gazans, while it continues to prepare for the next confrontation with Israel. Hamas also sees a truce deal and the economic stabilization of the Gaza Strip as a trump card against the more isolated Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and the Fatah movement. Hamas' bitter relations with Cairo can only be resuscitated by a truce with Israel, since it is in Egypt's interest to maintain the cease-fire. It is also in Hamas' interest to revive the dormant European donor community and convince it to invest in the economic development of Gaza. A truce with Israel could have exactly that effect.