The greatest threat to the Israel-Hamas ceasefire? I give you one guess.

If this is achieved the easy way, so much the better. If not, it will be done the hard way.

Thus spoke Benjamin Netanyahu about the Israel-Hamas ceasefire that began today at noon. Such an inspiring way of looking at it, of addressing the other side. Of achieving this — peace — with the violent patter of a protection racketeer.

But first, thought Bibi, in Gaza there seems to be insufficient rubble amongst an inadequate number of dead Palestinians. Mostly women and many children, whoever happens to be in the right place when Kilroy says hello from the skies. And so this was Gaza this morning before the ceasefire kicked in at noon.

Last night the Israeli military struck a site in northern Gaza where, it said, Hamas fighters “posed an immediate threat” to Israeli soldiers. Gaza’s Civil Defense rescue service said the bombed site was a residential building believed to be housing dozens of Palestinian civilians (for the ten-thousandth time).

An Israeli military spokesman said today that Palestinians in southern Gaza would be "allowed" to travel north once the ceasefire took effect. Thousands began doing precisely that within the minutes just after noon. The spokesman counseled the travelers to avoid areas where Israeli troops remain active, for those areas would be “extremely dangerous,” he said.

Throughout its genocidal campaign in Gaza, the Israeli military never really nailed the informational art of letting Palestinians know which areas were safe and which were exceedingly hazardous to their health. The military would, on frequent occasion, declare an area safe — only to then bomb the hell out of it.

Ergo, one must assume that perambulating Palestinians are traveling not at their own risk but at the risk of trying to accurately second-guess, with dubious information at hand, exactly which areas in their path are dangerously risky.

A compass alone won't cut it. Only divined knowledge will, which is super hard to get these days. Especially in Gaza. Ergo 2, a declared safe area might turn out to look pleasingly safe but unfortunately feel like this.

The ceasefire agreement stipulates that the Israeli military shall move to freshly drawn buffer lines of deployment inside Gaza by early tomorrow. Hamas has 72 hours to return the remaining hostages, 48 in all, 20 of whom Israel believes are alive.

The BBC reports that "details" of the live hostages' release "remains unclear," as does the timing of the decedents' return. The BBC "expects" Israel's simultaneous release of roughly 250 Palestinian prisoners and 1,700 detainees.

Further assuming that pesky details of the two-sided liberations are ironed out and all goes smoothly — a prodigious assumption — it is then that far bigger problems of uncertainty loom.

Netanyahu says no compromise on Hamas disarming and Gaza demilitarizing. Netanyahu's enemy sees things differently: Its disarmament would mean total capitulation to the armed occupier and Gaza's demilitarization would be one-sided. Meanwhile, thousands of Palestinians will have returned, or will be returning, north.

Hamas is still there, what's left of it. Should what's left decide that the ceasefire arrangement is less than tolerable,

or if innocent Palestinians unknowingly roam into vaguely delimited "extremely dangerous" areas on their way home and thus never make it,

or if some Israeli soldier reacts with lethality to some peculiar motion by a Palestinian mother holding a baby and not a bomb,

well, Gaza will be right back to where it was on Thursday.

The greatest threat to a successful ceasefire? Donald Trump. He had a major hand in it. And nothing Donald Trump handles ever works out admirably. He's a bloated blight on all that is to be hoped for — not for himself, for others.

Should the unfavorable odds play out in Gaza as they always have in his other dealings, pity, once again, the Palestinians.

Donald said earlier that if the ceasefire ceases, Bibi is welcome to recommence addressing the insufficient rubble amongst an inadequate number of the already dead.

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Cross-posted in Substack.