The dark sport of ceasefire-watching

JERUSALEM — Tuesday has already proven to be another nail-biter in the local sport here of ceasefire-watching.

It was down to the wire Monday night, when only an hour before the midnight expiration, Egypt prevailed upon Israel and Hamas to extend a five-day truce, which followed a three-day cessation of hostilities, by a further 24 hours.

Nervous jokes abounded:

Tuesday afternoon, the Israel Defense Forces announced that three rockets launched from Gaza had hit southern Israel. By 4 p.m. local time, Haaretz was reporting that Netanyahu had instructed the IDF to resume attacks on Gaza in response to the rockets.

Around and around we go.

Last Thursday, hours after the last cliffhanger ending to a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas and just as the next ceasefire went into effect, the Italian journalist Davide Frattini posted a short tweet:

In those two words, Frattini, who lives in Tel Aviv, concisely summed up the general feeling among Israelis who are trying to keep track of the ceasefires and their expiration dates.

A common greeting here is now, "Has it been renewed?"

Mahmoud Amran, a housepainter from the West Bank village of Za'atara who travels to work in Jerusalem six days a week, is not a fan of news broadcasts. He says they just make him feel unwell. Instead, every morning when he arrives at work he updates himself by asking whoever is around the general question: "Have they made peace?

So far, the answer is no. Or maybe. An indeterminate state persists, in which Israelis and Palestinians are slowly coming to the realization that this last iteration of the Gaza conflict may be, in the words of one military observer who asked not to be named, "a conflict with no end line."

On Monday, the deadline was midnight. At 9 p.m., both Israeli and Palestinian sources began circulating rumors indicating that one hour before the expiration, an extension of the ceasefire would be announced.

Almost immediately, other reports put those assertions in doubt:

Soon, indications emerged that the information may have been at best an overstatement, with senior Israeli sources claiming to have no information, either, about an approaching deal or about a security cabinet meeting.

"Senior Israeli source: Reports are premature and exaggerated. Still no agreement. I can't confirm this," Amit Segal tweeted.

And so the odd limbo persisted, with Israelis unsure whether to expect a renewal of rocket launches and sirens during the course of the night, or if the conflict was, finally, at least for now, maybe, over.

And then, on Tuesday, it was groundhog day all over again.

"It's like slowly separating from a guy but never formalizing the break-up," sighed one Jerusalem politico, who requested not to be identified. "It's kind of over but you don't really know where you stand."

And much as in such break-ups, the levels of stress are high, there's not much to say about the situation, and yet it is difficult to discuss anything else.

Dr. Rivka Tuval-Mashiach, a clinical psychologist who teaches at Bar Ilan University and the head of research and development for NATAL, Israel's Trauma Center for Victims of Terror and War, says that what allows normal life to go on is the same "illusionary system" that allows residents of dangerous cities to ignore the statistics and nevertheless venture out. "We don't really operate as if we're cognizant of how dangerous it really is to walk outside at night," she said. "It doesn't overtly disrupt daily life, but we ask the questions."

The minutes click by and reporters are still scrambling to decipher an opaque state of affairs.

"Right now most of the country is feeling uncertainty in terms of whether will there be another ground invasion or whether the ceasefire will hold," says Jonathan Huppert, a Hebrew University professor of psychology and an expert on trauma. Huppert mentions not only a possible return to bomb shelters, but the unpredictability faced by reserve soldiers, who remain on stand-by, and their families. "It’s a sort of ambiguity in which two main factors that lead to stress stand out: the lack of predictability and the lack of control over individual lives."

"No one can make any plans ahead," he pointed out.

In these kinds of situations, regardless of which side of the border you’re on, Huppert says the strain could manifest on many levels: "Elevated stress, more road rage, more arguments, be it at the store or among neighbors. Everyone's threshold for irritability and anger is lowered."