There is some sort of ceasefire in the Middle East. The United States and Iran have reduced the level of hostilities since the cease-fire that began on April 8. In Lebanon, Israel and Hezbollah never stopped fighting but greatly reduced the intensity of the fighting. But what are these “pauses” worth? Are they likely to last, and will they lead to a more lasting and comprehensive peace agreement? In a region where cease-fires are often seen as smoke and mirrors leading up to another round of fighting, it can be easy to dismiss them altogether—but even if they don’t hold, they still have value.
Overall, it is difficult to predict what US President Donald Trump will do, but there are lessons to be learned from looking at Israel’s position and past ceasefires between Israel and its adversaries in these two and a half years of war—and perhaps there is hope for more modest gains.
By our count, since the Hamas attack of October 7, 2023, which started the regional war, no less than seven ceasefires have been declared between Israel and its neighbors, including three in Gaza (once in 2023 and twice in 2025), two in Lebanon (2024 and 2026), and two in Iran (2020 and Iran). These ceasefires rarely stop fighting for long – sometimes only days – and of course, once firefights do occur, diplomatically and the media discussions to emerge who broke them first. Such debates are usually accompanied by prevailing narratives about power and responsibility: who started the war, who broke the peace, and which side is responsible for the ongoing violence.
Public observers, especially in the West, often think that a ceasefire is successful when it represents a permanent and complete cessation of hostilities. By the same logic, they believe that the ceasefire has failed if fighting resumes. Detractors begin to see the ceasefire as a joke from the start, while the naysayers fall into a cycle of hope and despair. Either way, the implication is that a ceasefire agreed upon and then violated is ineffective or worthless.
Yet this Middle East ceasefire was and is important, especially in Israel, where institutional politics and favoritism make escalation the mainstay of almost all military conflicts. Despite how quickly they disintegrate, or at least how often they are violated, they create space for diplomatic and humanitarian engagement. At the very least, they allow new aid to reach people in need and for civilians in besieged areas to move to safety. More so, they also clear the air for the conversation to start or move on to a new stage.
A cease-fire, even if it fails to bring about a complete or permanent cessation of hostilities, can still accomplish four central and important goals. First, they provide temporary relief to civilians caught in a combat zone. Second, they allow all parties to a conflict to strengthen themselves and engage in strategic reflection and learning. Third, they can establish new grounds for negotiation that, in many iterations, can be the stepping stone to a more lasting peace agreement. And fourth, they provide a novel narrative for leaders who want to hide their past mistakes and thus avoid the personal and party costs of being held accountable or the coalition costs of ending the war that some coalition partners are interested in saving.
Most of the ceasefire strategies of the last three years bear this out. Consider the previous ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, in the last week of November 2023, which saw the release of more than 100 hostages held by Hamas, the release of approximately 240 Palestinian detainees, and the opportunity for displaced Gazans to return home, at least temporarily. Israeli army it took away his power while Hamas is reorganizing. European and regional nations whose governments urged a temporary moratorium they expressed satisfaction-and the seemingly futile hope that both sides would maintain the ceasefire.
Both sides resumed fighting within hoursor even minutes, according to someof the cease-fire to take effect, but these violations were nevertheless isolated and frequent enough to preserve the general structure of the agreement – a strength that is often missed by foreign observers who interpret any exchange of fire during the agreed cease-fire as a serious violation.
The longest and most important ceasefire of January 19-March 17, 2025, was just as important. Despite possible ceasefire violations by Israel within days, and by Hamas within a week or two, the eight weeks of the ceasefire allowed for the return of tens of thousands of displaced Gazans, the delivery of humanitarian aid, and military reorganization on both sides. It also allowed international figures such as US President Joe Biden or the President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen to demand progress while releasing pressure on the embattled Netanyahu government. That the promised second phase of the ceasefire never materialized surprised no one.
These cease-fires have always been more difficult and imperfect than most international observers would expect—or the term cease-fire would suggest. We’ve noted that they were still valuable and still accomplished something, but it’s worth a more serious discussion about why they even happened in the first place if neither of the warring parties was truly committed to anything more than a brief pause.
Mainly this happened because international parties – from partners such as Canada for opponents like Turkey– put a lot of pressure on the parties, and especially on Israel. Israel faced intense international pressure to end the effective and deadly military operations that inflicted great harm on its opponents while causing great harm to civilians.
Accepting the ceasefire allowed Netanyahu and his government to maintain increasingly strained diplomatic relations with regional and Western allies. It also provided a reasonable excuse to stop or suspend campaigns which he enjoyed domestic support in Israelat least on the part of coalition voters, but they were not providing strategic benefits commensurate with their high costs.
At the same time, it is understandable that Israel’s enemies used the opportunity to appear sane, open to dialogue, and interested in peace, while they were actually winning on the battlefield. In some cases, such as the Hamas-led October 2025 ceasefire, the opponents were to be pressed and their own customers to accept the offer.
A few benefits are better than none. Almost everyone involved in this cease-fire was happy to participate in their show fully aware that anything that could be achieved was tactical, difficult and temporary. They still saved lives; he saw captives and prisoners released; and reduce part of the misery and suffering they face, and which they still face, and a large number of people civilians in Gazain south of Lebanonand in all of Israel (especially in the north).
But there are also limitations. Ceasefires enforced by international actors who are not parties to the actual conflict are bound to be weak and, for their parties, pathetic. Carl von Clausewitz famously said that war lasts as long as the will to fight remains; at no time has a character in the circles of war between Israel and her enemies shown a greater desire to stop for good. The danger is that diplomacy begins to appear phony and meaningless, with agreements unreliable and loophole-seeking parties requiring constant monitoring and enforcement.
Put differently, the late Israeli politician Abba Eban bad reputation to cast that the Palestinians “never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity” for peace now seems to be equally true of the Israeli government. Israel no longer views the ceasefire as an opportunity to create more permanent diplomatic arrangements, and therefore any opportunities it creates are closed without diplomatic success. In our view the general loss of confidence in a negotiated settlement of any kind is a harm that far outweighs the limited benefits of a limited ceasefire, however real those benefits may be.
This brings us back to the United States and Iran, on the one hand, and Israel and Lebanon on the other. Both the US and Iran are clearly interested in reaching a permanent ceasefire, as both regimes have a lot to lose by continuing. Washington, having started a war it cannot win, is struggling to end it without defeat even at the highest and most obvious cost, but it is stuck in a situation that cannot be carried out for more than a very short time. Iran, having survived a war it could not afford to lose, is facing an internal economic and political crisis that it now needs to resolve. Trump’s social media woes aside, there is some reason to expect a ceasefire between the US and Iran. it can help negotiated peace.
Israel, however, is being pressured into a cease-fire that it fears provides only tactical benefits while its campaign has yet to achieve its strategic goals. Hezbollah remains a serious threat to Israel’s security, even as Israel continues to enjoy success on the battlefield. Like its patron Iran, Hezbollah only needs to withstand Israeli attacks to rebuild, re-arm, and return to being a serious threat to Israel’s security—and to its status as the most powerful actor in Lebanon’s foreign affairs.
Yet with Netanyahu facing an election and an uncertain political future, and with the unprecedented format of direct talks now established between Israel and Lebanon, the third and fourth goals of the ceasefire are particularly important: negotiation hacking and reputational damage. The program that this supports is a historical possibility. With Hezbollah historically weakened, the Lebanese government may finally be in a position to claim his authority in the south of the country with the help of its Western allies.
In order for the Lebanese state to stop the threat that Hezbollah poses to Israel and the self-government of Lebanon, it will need a lot of help from international partners, including its army and police. If Israel has the courage and foresight to allow this, then it may finally make lasting peace with its other neighbor–and with Syria also acceptable, this may herald a new geopolitical era for the Levant.
The lessons here are important to our broader understanding of the ceasefire. They also raise the specific question of how combatants in this particular war can fight their way out of their unresolved security dilemmas. And if these cease-fires fail, then others—sometimes even permanent ones—are still possible.
