AL QUDS: When Palestinian militant organizations declared a unilateral truce one month ago, few Israelis and Palestinians gave it much chance of succeeding.

Previous attempts at ending the cycle of violence have crashed shortly after being launched and nearly three years of incessant bloodshed have led to a mutual distrust between Palestinians and Israelis.

On Tuesday, however, an unnamed senior Israeli military official went out on a limb and predicted that the truce would last longer than the agreed three months.

He told Israel Radio that after one month the truce was becoming a fixture in the Palestinian consciousness, and was supported by the public even though it was sceptical of Israel’s intentions.

The feeling may be that the longer the truce lasts, the greater its chance of surviving, but it has not been all plain sailing.

Break-away militants opposed to ending attacks on Israel have continued opening fire sporadically at Israelis and — according to Israeli intelligence — preparing suicide bombers for dispatch to Israel.

The Israeli army, for its part, continues arresting wanted militants in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

The situation may not be as tense as it was, but it is still volatile. It can take just one incident — a Palestinian suicide bombing, or an Israeli assassination attempt on a prominent militant to end the new atmosphere and bring about a return to the mutual desire for retaliation, which kept the violence going for so long.

But in the mean time, the number of intelligence warnings of impending attacks by militants has dropped from over 60 before the ceasefire to 13 last week.

Nine Palestinians and two Israelis and a foreign worker were killed in July, as opposed to around 28 Israelis and 68 Palestinians in June.

For pessimists, the argument is not whether the truce is gathering momentum, but at what pace.

Palestinians complain that Israel is foot-dragging on the issue of releasing prisoners — the militant groups’ main condition for calling the truce. Some add that Israeli humanitarian gestures — removing roadblocks in the West Bank, allowing more Palestinians to cross over to Israel to work — are merely public relations and insufficient.

Israel fears the militant organizations may be using the truce to rearm, reorganize and reposition themselves for “the day after”. It looks askance at Palestinian Premier Mahmoud Abbas’ view that so long as the truce continues, there is no reason to dismantle the infrastructure of the militant groups.

But while their leaders may be arguing over whether each side is doing enough to strengthen the new-found calm, Israelis and Palestinians are quietly, cautiously, enjoying its first fruits.

In Israel’s largest city, Tel Aviv, for example, there is a palpable sense of relief in the air as residents flock to places of entertainment. Many places have even done away with the security guard at the door, placed there in an attempt, sometimes successful, to stop suicide bombers.

Among Palestinians, the ceasefire is most felt on the ground in the Gaza Strip, as Israel has only pulled out of Bethlehem from the autonomous cities it has reoccupied on the West Bank.

“The situation now for sure is much better than before,” says Gaza taxi driver Mahmoud Sawi.

“It is calm now,” he points out, although he adds that “still nothing has changed. Most of the West Bank is still occupied by Israel, and thousands of prisoners are still imprisoned in Israeli jails”.

It is not only the violence and the situation on the ground which has changed. What Israelis condemned as incitement on the part of the Palestinians is also on the wane.

In Gaza City, walls once covered with slogans and drawings of guns and militants killed by the Israelis were whitewashed clean by Palestinian officials.

What surprised the sceptics is that the walls have remained that way.—dpa