Comment by edanm

I'm going to push back on this a little bit.

I agree that most reporting, and most statements from US officials, put the blame squarely on Hamas for not having accepted a deal earlier.

But there is also at least some sense, definitely reported on in Israel, that this time Israel was far more serious about getting a deal done - ergo, in the past rounds of negotiations Israel was not pursuing a deal as seriously.

In particular, Ben Gvir (a right-wing extremist Israeli politician) a couple of days ago took credit for causing the previous ceasefire deals to not happen. This has been talked about a bunch in Israel.

I think you're right in thinking of it as Hamas should've called Israel's bluff and had a deal sooner, but let's also be realistic in understanding that they might've correctly seen Israel as not really trying to get a deal.