My Brother's Keeper: Month 2, Week 4, Day 5.

The 72-hour cease-fire between Israel and the Palestinian factions in Gaza expired at mid-night (00:00) local time today (21:00/13/8/14 GMT). This meant that most of yesterday was taken up by frantic efforts to agree an extension to the cease-fire.

As it has been throughout the conflict the main problem has been Hamas who seemingly think that they have the support of the World behind them spent the day making it clear they were spoiling for a fight. For example the Palestinian delegation first issued a statement announcing that the cease-fire would be the last cease-fire. Hamas itself then went on to declare that it would resume fighting unless the blockade was lifted in full. As Israel is already offering the unrestricted flow of goods into Gaza the sticking point seemed to be granting freedom of movement to Hamas fighters into Israel. The final straw came when Hamas announced that Mohammed Deif - the leader of it's military wing - would make a rare televised address at 18:30 (21:30 local). This would immediately be followed by a press conference by the Palestinian delegation in Egypt. This was widely predicted as Hamas announcing the end to the cease-fire and the resumption of rocket fire into Israel.

Although Deif's TV appearance went ahead the press conference was cancelled at the very last minute. However it appears that the change of plan came too late for the message to reach fighters on the ground. So within an hour of Deif's TV appearance (roughly 19:30/22:30) four rockets were fired from Gaza into Israel breaking the cease-fire by roughly 90 minutes.

While they are being coy about the exact details it appears that Israel had a drone over the rocket launching site at the time the firing took place. As a result they were immediately able to respond by attacking the rocket launch site destroying it before the rockets even landed in Israel. As it turns out 1 of those rockets was destroyed by the Iron Dome system while the other three fell harmlessly into open areas in Israel.

This swift show of force by the Israelis seems to have forced Hamas to rapidly reconsider their plan to resume attacks. So within an hour the Palestinian delegation announced that the cease-fire would be extended by a further 5 days (120 hours) without pre-condition. This sudden about face immediately plunged the situation into chaos with Israel having only 30 minutes to decide whether to agree. Matters were confused further because again the message didn't get through to fighters on the ground who fired a further 4 rockets into Israel as the original cease-fire came to an end. This prompted Israel to respond against the rocket launch sites with air-strikes but once those air-strikes had been completed Israel did agree to the cease-fire which was back dated to start at mid-night as scheduled.

While all this was going on one child was killed and another two injured in a rocket strike inside Egypt close to the border with Gaza. It is not yet clear whether that rocket came from Gaza or whether on the eve of the anniversary of the Rabaa al-Adawiya Mosque clearence it was simply Egyptian militants fighting the Egyptian government.

Overnight the US' response to all this has proved rather worrying. Firstly the US decided to announce that Israel had agreed to the cease-fire long before Israel had agreed. US President Obama then went on to urge Israel to agree to any cease-fire regardless of its security needs. Finally the US announced that it would be deciding future weapons sales to Israel on a case-by-case basis and would not be going through with a delivery of highly accurate Hellfire missiles. A shortage of Hellfire missiles would of course force Israel to rely on less accurate weapons increasing the risk of civilians being killed.

However the general tone of the US position is only likely lead to Hamas thinking that they indeed do have the support of the US encouraging them to become more militant further reducing the chances of a negotiated end to hostilities.

12:45 on 14/8/14 (UK date).