Why are some experts skeptical of a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas?

It's been one month since nearly 1,000 Hamas militants entered southern Israel, murdering more than a thousand people before retreating back into the Gaza Strip with hundreds of hostages. In response, Israel has spent weeks pulverizing the densely packed Palestinian territory with massive aerial bombardments and a ground incursion, killing more than 10,000 people, with thousands of children among the dead. Set apart from past conflagrations by the sheer scale and ferocity of violence on display over the last month, the ongoing bloodshed has transcended mere regional conflict and become a global issue, with world leaders, activists, affected communities, and opportunistic actors all weighing in on the various antecedents to — and antidotes for — the ongoing crisis. 

Among the various messages to emerge from that global cacophony, perhaps none has become as pressing, or as potentially fraught, as the call for an immediate cease-fire between Israeli forces and Hamas militants. On Monday, nearly two dozen United Nations agency heads and partnered NGOs demanded an "immediate humanitarian cease-fire" writing in a joint statement that "It’s been 30 days. Enough is enough. This must stop now.” At the same time, a coalition of 35 Israeli Jewish and Arab Rights Groups made a similar call, writing in an open letter that "Israel must strive for a stable cease-fire, within which negotiations for a political agreement will be started immediately based on mutual recognition of the right of the two peoples to self-determination," according to Haaretz. And this weekend, thousands of protesters in Washington, D.C., vented their frustrations with the Biden administration's response to the violence, threatening the president with chants of "no cease-fire, no votes" CNN reported. 

Not everyone, however, is so certain that an immediate cease-fire (as opposed to other, less-holistic pauses) is the best way to diffuse this latest flare-up of violence in one of the most entrenched conflicts on Earth. 

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What the commentators said

Israel should engage in a "very short humanitarian intermission — but not to an armistice," former Israeli Justice Minister and Oslo Peace Accords negotiator Yossi Beilin told The Washington Post. Predicting future long-term peace negotiations in a post-Netanyahu Israel, Beilin declared that the war can only end "by driving Hamas from power in the Gaza Strip, and that a "long cease-fire might help this Islamic State-like movement remain in power."

Progressive Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) agreed, telling CNN's Dana Bash that he doesn't see "how you can have a cease-fire, permanent cease-fire, with an organization like Hamas" in power. In doing so, Sanders "walks a fine line," The Guardian reported, as he balances "condemning the civilian death toll caused by Israeli air strikes while resisting calls for a full-on cease-fire."

Speaking with reporters at the United Nations building on Monday, however, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres reiterated calls for a "humanitarian cease-fire" made "more urgent with every passing hour." Rep Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), the first woman of Palestinian descent and one of just two Muslim women in Congress, has been even more strident in her demands for a cease-fire, claiming on X, formerly Twitter, that President Joe Biden is complicit in "genocide" if he does not pressure Israel to relent from its bombardment of Gaza. 

While the Biden administration has "achieved modest successes" behind closed doors in tempering Israel's attacks on Gaza, it remains "frustrated" with not having further leverage, The Washington Post reported. Nevertheless, publicly the White House has refused to back a full cease-fire push, with a National Security Council spokesperson telling Reuters that although the U.S. supports "humanitarian pauses" in the violence for essential aid and hostage negotiations to continue, "we do not support ... calls for Israel to stop defending itself from Hamas terrorists, which is what a permanent cease-fire would be."

What next? 

Claiming to the Post that cease-fire was a seemingly "dirty word" in the Biden administration, Palestinian author and activist Laila El-Haddad highlighted the "racist implication" that by not calling for one, "the lives of one group of people, Israelis, matter more than those of another, Palestinians." Ultimately a cease-fire is a "strategic, political and moral imperative" for the US.

The White House however seems set to pursue "the possibility of humanitarian pauses in the fighting in Gaza" with Netanyahu, Axios reporter Barak Ravid reported.