“Yesterday was one of the calmest days, perhaps, since March 30,” Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman said on July 22 as he toured the Kerem Shalom border crossing with Gaza after yet another tense weekend. If the calm is preserved, Liberman promised, Israel would reopen the crossing on July 24 and restore the transfer of goods and raw material into the Strip. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the crossing closed two weeks ago in response to the wave of arson kites and balloons into Israel that have laid waste to extensive border areas. “The key to all this is quiet, calm, zero incendiary balloons, zero clashes on the fence and zero rockets or, heaven forbid, gunfire,” Liberman warned. He was referring to a promise Hamas conveyed to Israel through Egyptian mediators after Israel’s massive punitive July 20 airstrikes on Gaza in response to the killing of Israeli soldier Aviv Levi by Palestinian snipers.

There is no record in memory of such an urgent, unconditional Hamas cease-fire offer without preconditions. Hamas committed to stop Palestinian protest demonstrations along the Gaza fence and the ongoing kite and balloon arson campaign. In fact, events over the weekend once again reflected how Hamas leadership miscalculated the limits of its power. Deploying snipers in the highly charged border area and killing an Israeli soldier for the first time since the 2014 Israel-Gaza war instantly set back all of the movement’s achievements of recent months.

Since March 30, when the massive protests began along the fence, followed by the launching of incendiary kites and balloons into Israel, Hamas has succeeded in restoring international interest in Israel’s 11-year blockade of the Strip and to exert real pressure on Israel to forge a deal that would ease life for the Strip’s 2 million Palestinians. Using primitive methods, Hamas managed to challenge Israel perhaps more than it did with tens of thousands of rockets and artillery shells it has fired at Israel since it forcibly took over control of Gaza in 2006. Israel had virtually no effective response to these “popular” methods engendered by the suffering of local residents — methods that were considered by Gaza residents and, to some extent, by the international community as well as legitimate resistance. However, Hamas lost the advantage of this popular protest when it moved snipers into the arena and substituted live fire for the kite and balloon fire.

Al-Monitor tried to obtain the reaction of Hamas activists to the events of the past weekend, but nobody was willing to admit that Hamas had pleaded with Egypt to arrange a cease-fire. There is nothing more humiliating for them than to admit they do not have the upper hand. After each armed clash with Israel, Hamas has always bragged that its “resistance forces” had taught the “Zionist enemy” a lesson. This time, they were collectively silent.