Bloodshed over the weekend highlighted the brittleness of the cease-fires in both places. Still, Israel, Hamas and Hezbollah each have reasons to postpone a new escalation, at least for a few weeks.

Israel is letting thousands of Palestinians return to northern Gaza for the first time since the early weeks of the war with Hamas​, as a fragile ceasefire endures​.

Sunday’s delayed start to the truce was a minor problem compared with the difficult choices and American leverage needed to get both parties to the second phase, which could end the war.

Reuters, the news and media division of Thomson Reuters, is the world’s largest multimedia news provider, reaching billions of people worldwide every day. Reuters provides business, financial, national and international news to professionals via desktop terminals, the world's media organizations, industry events and directly to consumers.

In leaked comments from Knesset committee, outgoing IDF chief defends staying on job until now, urges 'effective sanctions' against Haredi draft dodgers The post IDF chief said to hail approval of ‘painful’ Gaza deal,

Palestinian militant group Hamas has been significantly battered by 15 months of war in Gaza but has not suffered the eradication that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu intended, experts say.After sparking the deadliest war in the Palestinian territory's history,

Naim Qassem insisted Hezbollah had emerged from the fight with Israel victorious, despite painful and unprecedented setbacks, and was unwilling to concede the group’s domestic position. Qassem also expressed Hezbollah’s satisfaction with Lebanon’s post-war political direction and said his group had a productive and positive relationship with Lebanon’s new president and prime minister-designate.

Israeli troops fired on people trying to return home to southern Lebanon and delayed a return home for northern Gaza residents. Israel blamed Hezbollah and Hamas.

Hezbollah leader Sheikh Naim Qassem said Monday that Israel should withdraw from the occupied border areas in southern Lebanon, rejecting the extension of the cease-fire arrangements to Feb. 18.

Friedman’s dreamscape for the Middle East makes no sense on any level.  Even former secretary of state Antony Blinken eventually recognized that Israel has “systematically undermined the capacity and legitimacy of the only viable alternative to Hamas,

No one is quite sure who will hold the reins of power in battle-scarred Gaza or where the vast resources for post-war reconstruction will come from.