The recent ceasefire between Hamas and Israel seems to offer a good opportunity to put the war in perspective by asking three key questions. First, did Israel know in advance about Hamas’ plans for the Oct. 7 attack?

A moment’s reflection suggests inverting this: How could it not have known? The section of the border where the incursion occurred was certainly watched. And Mossad, Israel’s vaunted intelligence service, must have had agents planted inside Hamas’ ranks. Just as the assassination of the Lebanese Hezbollah leader, Hassan Nasrallah, was accomplished after determining his location with pinpoint accuracy, many of the raids that turned Gaza into rubble were guided by ground-based intelligence about Hamas’ movements. Shocking though it is, then, it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that the Israelis knew ahead of time of Hamas’ intentions.

Second, why did Israel now agree to a ceasefire after 15 months of vacillation? Following the killing of top Hamas leaders, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu boasted, “We have changed the face of the Middle East.” The fall of Assad weakened Iran, removing at a stroke its extensive network for supplying its proxies — Hamas, West Bank Islamic militants and, above all, Hezbollah — with weapons, supplies and intelligence.

But Netanyahu’s boast may be premature — Hamas is not defeated. Former Secretary of State Antony Blinken estimates that Hamas has recruited almost as many fighters as it has lost. Additionally, Gulf states like Saudi Arabia now say they won’t normalize relations with Israel unless it commits to a path to establish a Palestinian state, something Netanyahu is sworn to prevent.

Third, will Israel adhere to the ceasefire, and if it doesn’t, what will follow? Netanyahu has gone on record as saying that the ceasefire agreement preserves Israel’s right to return to the war against Hamas if it so chooses. Presumably the return of the hostages is a key issue here, albeit a paradoxical one. For example, if all of the hostages who are still alive are returned safely, then Netanyahu would have little reason not to return to war, in order to fulfill his non-negotiable pledge to destroy Hamas.

On the other hand, if some of the hostages remain in captivity, he may be tempted to use military means in order to rescue them. Either way, the prime minister would strengthen his parliamentary majority, since the fringe parties are opposed to any cessation of hostilities. To this end, some observers have suggested that he might even call a snap election. No matter what, the ceasefire would be broken and the war would resume. This would obviously be a catastrophe, since the possibility of brokering another ceasefire in the near future seems diminishingly small. In this context it’s worth noting that the Israelis have never offered a realistic alternative to Hamas for governing Gaza. Thus, their withdrawal leaves behind a vacuum that Hamas will inevitably fill.

In reality, the cessation of military activity by Israel never really took hold. In addition to conducting sporadic raids into northern Gaza, Israel continues to occupy parts of the border with Lebanon, breaking a months-old ceasefire agreement there. More significantly, Israel has targeted Jenin, a city in the northern part of the Israeli-occupied West Bank, which has for decades been a hotbed of militancy.

For Mr. Netanyahu, the operation in the West Bank could serve as a distraction from Gaza, where Hamas gunmen have been making a show of force in the city streets. The prime minister has declared the operation was aimed at eradicating terrorism and would be “extensive and significant.” The Jenin operation comes amid sharply rising tensions in the West Bank as militants have increasingly asserted their military power.

Given that the first stage of the ceasefire has already been violated, the prospects for reaching the second stage seem remote. And if we do not reach it, the world will have to learn the hard lesson that a ceasefire is not the same as peace.