Anxiety in Gaza and Israel as Cease-Fire Nears End of First Phase

Shamekh al-Dibs has not begun rebuilding his home in northern Gaza, which was destroyed last year. He is living in a nearby school turned into a shelter for displaced Gazans, grappling with a deep uncertainty over whether this tense calm will last.

The first phase of the cease-fire elapses on Saturday night and there have been few signs of progress in talks on the next steps. This leaves both Israelis and Palestinians in limbo, not knowing how long the truce will hold after the first series of hostage-for-prisoner exchanges was completed early Thursday morning.

“Our only hope is that the cease-fire continues,” said Mr. al-Dibs, 36 and currently unemployed.

For now, the first six-week phase of the cease-fire is set to conclude without a clear framework to take its place. That does not necessarily mean an immediate return to war: The agreement says the truce can continue as long as negotiators are working on the next steps. But it makes the already fragile pause in the fighting more precarious.

Extending the deal will entail tackling much thornier issues, such as a permanent end to the war and the reconstruction of Gaza. Under the terms of the phased agreement, Israel would effectively have to declare an end to its war against Hamas in order to secure the release of some two dozen hostages believed to still be alive.

For the families of Israeli captives, the prospect of their loved ones’ release is both closer than ever before and agonizingly distant. They are well aware that formidable obstacles remain to securing their freedom given the lack of an agreement on the second phase of the deal.

“By Sunday, we’ll be in no man’s land,” said Adi Alexander, whose American Israeli son, Edan Alexander, has been held in Gaza for more than 500 days. “It was left blurry on purpose, and it’s still blurry,” he said of this element of the cease-fire agreement.

Israel and Hamas did not sign a full cease-fire agreement in mid-January. Instead, they committed to a complex, multiphase plan that aimed to slowly build momentum toward an end to more than a year of devastating war in Gaza.

The first stage was intended to stop the fighting for at least six weeks days while the two sides hashed out a more comprehensive settlement.

Hamas released 30 Israeli and foreign hostages and handed over the bodies of eight more in exchange for more than 1,000 Palestinians jailed by Israel. It was a rocky process that involved staged handovers of the hostages in Gaza that Israel described as humiliating, and that almost derailed the entire deal.

Israel and Hamas remain as distant as ever when it comes to their core demands in the truce negotiations.

Israel has vowed it will not end the war permanently until Hamas is no longer in control of Gaza and the territory is demilitarized. Hamas has mostly refused to consider disbanding its battalions of armed fighters or sending its leaders into exile.

Steve Witkoff, President Trump’s Middle East envoy, has floated the idea of extending the first phase by continuing to swap more hostages for prisoners.

On Thursday, Abdel-Latif al-Qanou, a Hamas spokesman, said the group was open to extending the first phase as long as it did not entail giving up on Hamas’s core demands, including an end to the war and a full withdrawal of Israeli forces. He said Israel had dragged its feet on opening negotiations for the second phase.

Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, has faced considerable internal pressure from within his own government. His political allies say they hope to ultimately return to war with Hamas and want to build Jewish settlements in Gaza.

Under the cease-fire agreement, Israel is set to begin withdrawing its forces from Gaza’s border with Egypt over the weekend. But Mr. Netanyahu has repeatedly stated that he views Israeli control of the area — known as the Philadelphi Corridor — as a core security interest.

Both Israel and Hamas have reasons to avoid a resumption of the war.

Hamas wants to give its military forces a chance to recuperate and begin rebuilding a destroyed Gaza. Israel wants to bring home the remaining hostages. Of the roughly 250 taken during the Hamas-led attack of Oct. 7, 2023, the Israeli government believes about 25 are still alive. Israel also wants to bring home the bodies of roughly 30 others.

But the prospect of a return to fighting has also never really gone away. Many Israelis, particularly on the right, have said they cannot countenance ending the war with Hamas’s rule of Gaza intact. For now, Hamas appears to have given little ground on the question.

Mr. Alexander, whose son was abducted from an Israeli military post, said he was optimistic that neither Israel nor Hamas wanted to go back to fighting.

“Nobody wants this war to restart again — not Israel, not the United States. I definitely don’t think Hamas wants it,” he said.

But the Israeli government should “put the hostages up front, let this country heal, and think about Hamas later,” said Mr. Alexander.