Following a three-week respite, Hamas is planning to renew Friday protests along the Gaza-Israel border starting Dec. 6. At the same time, head of the Hamas political bureau Ismail Haniyeh is in Cairo this week, invited for talks with Egypt’s intelligence services. A Palestinian Islamic Jihad delegation that includes senior officials of its political and military wings as well as its secretary-general, Ziad Al-Nakhalah, who arrived from Lebanon, is also in Cairo. The ongoing talks on an Egyptian-mediated “arrangement” with Israel will be conducted from now on in the presence of representatives of both strong organizations in Gaza, Hamas and Islamic Jihad. A photo of Haniyeh and Nakhalah in Cairo shows them smiling and clutching each other’s hands like long-lost relatives.

The cordial meeting hosted at its headquarters by Egyptian intelligence, which is sponsoring the negotiations over a deal with Israel on Gaza, took place against the backdrop of tensions between the two major Gaza organizations. Following Israel’s Nov. 12 killing of Islamic Jihad northern Gaza commander Bahaa Abu el-Atta, Islamic Jihad retaliated with hundreds of rockets at Israeli targets, but Hamas sat out the brief, violent skirmish. Hamas also scrapped the weekly protests it has been organizing on the Gaza border with Israel since March 2018. Israel interpreted the calm along the border and the Hamas decision to refrain from rocket fire as indications that the group’s leadership was serious about wanting a deal with Israel, despite domestic criticism, and hoped for further progress in the talks that have been going on for over a year.

Although the political crisis in Israel is holding up completion of the deal and its implementation, Israel has taken measures in recent months to ease its blockade of Gaza and build trust with Hamas. For example, it has approved more extensive shipments of raw materials and food into the enclave through its Kerem Shalom crossing. At the same time, preparations are in advanced stages for the installation of power lines from Israel. Israel is even allowing several thousand Gaza residents to work in Israel, most of them on farms and a minority in construction.

So why has Hamas decided to renew the border protests and risk an escalation with Israel even as the deal is taking shape ahead of its completion? Khalil Al-Hayya, the deputy of Hamas Gaza leader Yahya Sinwar, provided the explanation. In a Dec. 3 interview with the Palestinian Al-Youm television station, which is considered close to Islamic Jihad, Hayya was asked about Haniyeh’s talks in Cairo. “We are in negotiations and at the same time we have our finger on the trigger,” he answered. The interviewer did not back off and instead said mockingly, “But the negotiations you are conducting will have a price; you are in fact making economic peace with Israel.” The interviewer’s disparagement and cynicism hit a nerve with Hamas, precisely echoing frequent criticism by the organization at the Palestinian Authority (PA), saying Israel was not offering Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas a peace deal in return for ceding territories, but rather a humiliating economic peace that has Israel buying off the Palestinians while occupying their lands.