Hamas ready for phase two

Ceasefire talks are still moving in Gaza — but the ground reality looks nothing like a stable truce. Hamas said on May 4 that it is ready to enter phase-two negotiations with Israel. But it attached a condition: Israel has to actually carry out the first phase of the agreement in full. At nearly the same moment, Palestinians in Gaza were still being killed by Israeli fire. ### What changed this week? The new piece is Hamas making its position public again in sharper terms. Senior Hamas official Abdulrahman Shadid said the group is prepared to move into the second phase, but only if Israel shows what he called a genuine commitment to the terms already on the table. That matters because phase two is the part meant to move beyond a limited pause and toward a broader end-state. ### Why is phase two such a big deal? Because phase one is the easy part by comparison. A first phase in deals like this usually covers immediate de-escalation steps, aid access, and practical exchanges. Phase two is where the hard political questions show up — Israeli withdrawal, Hamas’s future role, disarmament, and who governs Gaza after miles apart. ### So what is Hamas actually demanding? Basically, Hamas is saying: no skipping ahead. It wants the first phase completed before the next one becomes real. Reporting around the talks says that includes demands tied to Israeli implementation, movement on Gaza administration, and guarantees that transition without bigger political guarantees. ### What is Israel’s position? Israel appears to be treating phase two as inseparable from Hamas disarmament and a different security arrangement inside Gaza. That is the core clash. Hamas wants implementation first and major guarantees. Israel wants the next stage to lock in Hamas’s military role. ### Why do the fresh deaths matter so much? Because they show the ceasefire is partly political language and partly ongoing war. On May 5, reports from Gaza said two Palestinians were killed by Israeli fire in the previous 24 hours. Witnesses described artillery shelling in eastern Gaza City and naval fire off Rafah and Khan Younis. Even where no casualties were reported, people in Gaza say that “ceasefire” does not mean safety. ### Are talks still alive? Yes — that is the strange part. Mediators are still shuttling proposals, and Hamas’s statement was not a rejection. It was more like a conditional yes. But conditional yeses are fragile when every day on the ground creates new anger, mistrust, and pressure for retaliation. The diplomacy has not collapsed. It just has not outrun the violence. ### What should readers watch next? Watch for one concrete signal — whether mediators can turn “phase two” from a slogan into a timetable. If there is no visible implementation of phase one, Hamas can say Israel is stalling. If Israel keeps centering disarmament first, it can say Hamas is dodging the real issue. Both claims can be true from inside each side’s logic. ### Bottom line The news is not that peace is breaking out in Gaza. It is that both sides are still speaking the language of negotiations while acting from deep distrust. Hamas says it is ready for phase two. The battlefield keeps saying phase one was never solid enough to hold.