“The leadership of Hamas and the Islamic Jihad announced Nov. 1 that they accept the understandings reached with Israel through Egyptian mediation: transitioning to nonviolent demonstrations along the fence while the siege of Gaza is eased,” reports Shlomi Eldar. “The joint announcement was made at the end of a meeting between the heads of the organizations (including Hamas' military arm) at Hamas political bureau chief Ismael Haniyeh's office in Gaza. The groups decided to give the plan a trial period of six months.”

Both Hamas and the Islamic Jihad have shown unusual restraint in recent weeks in order to prevent escalation of the conflict with Israel, distancing themselves from rocket attacks on Beersheba in southern Israel on Oct. 17. Rasha Abou Jalal reports that Hamas officials told Al-Monitor that those attacks were not planned in the “resistance factions’ joint operation room,” which is “designed to ensure that any retaliatory Palestinian military action against Israel is done jointly among the factions [Hamas and the Islamic Jihad], to identify the opportune time to carry out such an action, and to determine its magnitude based on that of the Israeli attacks.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s willingness to deal with Gaza has been a work in progress. Almost 10 years ago, “Netanyahu announced that if he was elected [as prime minister], he would order the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to invade Gaza, bring down the Hamas regime and destroy the terror nest that it has become,” writes Ben Caspit. “On Oct. 29, Netanyahu admitted for the first time that Israel ‘has no interest in toppling the Hamas regime.’ The prime minister summoned political reporters and regaled them with a very detailed and convincing speech as to why Israel has no current interest in bringing down Hamas and would, therefore, make do with reaching an arrangement to keep Gaza from total collapse. The reasoning, in Netanyahu’s own words, was that the collapse of Gaza ‘would blow up in our faces.’ He then went on to blame Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas for the collapse of Gaza’s humanitarian infrastructures.”

“The mini arrangement was initiated by Egypt after the chances of a broader arrangement were deemed to be nil,” writes Eldar. “Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas categorically refuses to enter Gaza and take part in an arrangement despite the enormous efforts expended on it. Another of the obstacles to the arrangement is Hamas' unwillingness to give up its demonstrations at the border, out of concern that if the arrangement doesn’t work they would be hard to restart.”