For a couple minutes it looked like Israel was ready to declare that the daily shelling of Israeli civilians - two more mortars Sunday afternoon, a missile Sunday night, plus seven rockets and a missile on Tuesday - didn't count as a "ceasefire." Not so fast:

Although the truce began on June 19 "it was agreed explicitly that there is no expiration date" in the agreement, head of the Defense Ministry's Diplomatic-Security Bureau Maj.-Gen. (res) Amos Gilad told Channel 2 on Monday night. "In the end, the test is the calm and the benefit the residents have had for long months, even though it is relative calm," he added. Exiled Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal however, said on Sunday that the truce would not be renewed when it expires on Friday. Other Hamas officials said that the group had not yet made a decision on whether or not they would seek to renew the agreement.

That "maybe we will and maybe we won't" game is fun for everybody. It lets you keep firing at will because - who knows - maybe you'll stop. It also gives diplomatic correspondents an excuse to print their "internal divisions" boilerplate. But at some point people start to doubt whether you're really as committed to genocide as you say. And then you have to clarify:

After expressing contradictory positions on Sunday, Hamas' leadership on Monday adopted a united stance: The cease-fire with Israel, which expires this Friday, will not be extended. On Sunday, the Damascus-based head of Hamas' political bureau, Khaled Meshal, had said precisely that, but Gaza-based leaders of the movement insisted that no decision had yet been reached. Monday, however, Hamas' spokesman in the Gaza Strip, Ayman Taha, said the movement had concluded that there was no point in extending the truce "as long as Israel isn't abiding by its terms" - though he added that talks on continuing the cease-fire were still taking place.

That way - should Israel send troops across the Gaza order - media outlets won't have to invent any new ledes: "despite ongoing talks aimed at maintaining the a shaky ceasefire, the Israeli government launched..." Convenient. For their part, Islamic Jihad is being as helpful as you'd expect. Above and beyond contributing their fair share of the rocket and missile barrages, they're basically daring Israel to invade Gaza. In unrelated news Israel killed a top Islamic Jihad operative in the West Bank.

After the jump some good news about how the peace process will fix all this.,.