After five disappointments, five cease-fires Hamas has agreed to and violated, Israeli officials expressed cautious optimism on Monday that this time, an end to the fighting in Gaza Strip may be in sight. As far as Israel is concerned, the timing of the cease-fire is favorable, as the military has successfully completed Operation Protective Edge's main objective, which was neutralizing Hamas' terror tunnels, on Monday. Thirty-two tunnels were destroyed, the last of them running 2.5 kilometers (1.5 miles) into the Palestinian side of Rafah, where three Givati Brigade soldiers were killed on Friday. Israeli officials have also expressed their satisfaction over the fact that Egypt has reprised its role as the key mediator in the conflict, not only because it has rendered the Qatar-Turkey path obsolete, and not even because Egypt has clearly sided with Israel, or to be more accurate, against Hamas. One of the reasons the fighting has gone on for as long as it has, is the absence of a mediating mechanism both parties could agree on. Now it seems that Egypt will be able to once again head these efforts, as it has in the past. The fact that Hamas has eventually agreed to have Egypt mediate a cease-fire may reflect the distress within its ranks. Unless the Palestinians violate the cease-fire once again, the Israel Defense Forces is likely to speed up its redeployment in the south and withdraw its forces from the Gaza Strip. The process may be completed within 72 hours, after which the troops would be deployed east of the border. Once that is done, the Cairo talks will begin, focusing on the parties' fundamental demands: Hamas will demand the Palestinian Authority transfer the funds necessary to pay its employees' wages and an end to the blockade, and Israel will demand the full demilitarization of Gaza in exchange for assisting in its rehabilitation. Israel is likely to allow a large influx of humanitarian aid into Gaza during the cease-fire talks, to alleviate the Palestinian population's suffering as well as to reduce the international criticism over the number of civilian casualties and overall devastation in the Strip. The IDF plans on maintaining substantial forces on the ground along the Israel-Gaza Strip border, at least for the foreseeable future, to both provide a new sense of security to the Israelis living in the border-adjacent communities and to thwart any breach of the cease-fire by Palestinian terror groups. These two needs are why Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon and IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz met Monday with the commanders of the battalions fighting in Gaza Strip and briefed them on the possibility of a renewed ground operation in Gaza. Should the cease-fire hold, the presence of Israeli troops on the ground will be gradually diminished, and the tens of thousands of reservists that have been called up over the past few weeks will be relieved of duty.
