The rumor mill is spinning wildly in Israel and the Palestinian territories. Once again, Hamas reportedly is mulling a potential long-term cease-fire with Israel in exchange for the lifting of Israel's blockade and the construction of an offshore seaport that would be under Israeli or international supervision, and once again Israel reportedly is considering softening its position. Meanwhile, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has threatened again to dissolve the technocratic Palestinian unity government; some sources, such as Ynet, claim the dissolution has already occurred. With so much noise, it behooves us to put aside the rumors and to consider the facts: that Israel has no incentive to lift the blockade of the Gaza Strip; that the only thing clear about Hamas and Fatah is that they are competing for legitimacy in the eyes of both Palestinians and the international community; and most important, that Egypt has opened the Rafah border crossing with Gaza for the longest consecutive period since July 2013.

Israeli Radio reported on Monday that various Hamas officials arrived in Doha, Qatar, to formulate a potential five-year cease-fire agreement with Israel and that Hamas deputy leader Moussa Abu Marzouk, the same Hamas official who in March announced Hamas had rejected a similar offer, was chief among them. Asharq Al-Awsat claimed that informed sources believed an agreement was imminent and posited that the plan was proposed by Qatar and endorsed by Turkey and an unspecified number of EU and U.N. countries. However, a Hamas-backed newspaper, Felesteen, concluded that the proposal came from former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, head of the Middle East Quartet. The Jerusalem Post, meanwhile, pointed out that Marzouk had visited Egypt recently and attributed these diplomatic murmurs to improved relations between Hamas and Egypt.

If it is hard to ascertain precisely what is being said in these various meetings, it is because a number of reports on the same issue are being echoed, yet each has slightly different details. There are even reports that claim nothing happened at all: The Felesteen newspaper quoted senior Hamas official Khalil al-Hayya as saying the various rumblings about a truce between Hamas and Israel are simply an attempt to divert attention from Gaza's economic and humanitarian problems.

Although it is not clear precisely what Hamas and Israel are discussing in back channels, it is clear that something happened that displeased Abbas and other Fatah officials. Several Fatah officials told AFP on Tuesday that Abbas had given the Palestinian unity government — consisting of Hamas and Fatah — two hours until its dissolution. And yet even here, there is little clarity to be found. A spokesman for the unity government reportedly told AFP that he was unaware of any steps toward its dissolution. According to Al-Resalah news, a presidential spokesman denied that Palestinian Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah had submitted his resignation, insisting instead that he was still hard at work. Hamas, for its part, reacted to the reports by saying it rejected any unilateral steps to change the makeup of the government.

The fact is that these are cyclical processes. Rumors of a Hamas-Israel truce have surfaced before and likely will appear again. Nothing meaningful has changed since the last time an alleged truce proposal flopped in March. Furthermore, even if Hamas decided it was ready for a truce, there is nothing to indicate that Israel would consider dropping its blockade of the Gaza Strip and allow foreign fighters and materials freer access so close to home. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is governing with a razor-thin majority in an extremely conservative coalition; yesterday, former Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman declared he would seriously consider leading his party's six seats into the government if Netanyahu signed off on the construction of 1,000 new units in Maale Adumim, a large settlement east of Jerusalem. Lieberman's request was perhaps slightly tongue-in-cheek, but it is closer to Israel's current political reality than Netanyahu deciding to open up the borders with Gaza.

Meanwhile, the saga of the political reconciliation between Fatah and Hamas is a story that has been unfolding since Hamas unseated Fatah in Gaza in June 2007. Though Hamas has taken over the mantle of resistance from Fatah and derives its legitimacy from that, it has faced the beginnings of threats to its own power and has not been able to bring any semblance of economic progress to Gaza. Perhaps it was looking for a diplomatic success that could bring prosperity, or at least wanted to appear like it could do so. Fatah, an ossified organization that has struggled to tackle corruption in its own ranks, insists that it be the sole representative of the Palestinian people to the world, and as a result it is constantly competing with Hamas.

At this point, nothing besides suspicion links the reports of Abbas dismissing the unity government with Fatah feeling threatened by the potential success, or perhaps mere existence, of Hamas-Israel backchannel negotiations. In the absence of concrete information, the most that can be said is that Hamas is mulling the challenges it faces to its rule in Gaza and is either considering or engaging in a behind-the-scenes negotiation with Israel. Fatah feels insecure about its standing relative to Hamas and thus felt a need to establish its supremacy. From Israel's point of view, the Palestinians are weaker when they are divided, and the incentive is for Israel to play with both sides. 

Beneath this maelstrom of reporting, there is one salient fact: The Rafah border crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip was open Wednesday. The border was opened June 13, for the first time since Oct. 24, 2014. Initially, the crossing was supposed to be open for only three days, but Egypt subsequently approved an extension until June 19, making this the longest consecutive opening of the Rafah border crossing since the Egyptian military toppled former Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi. It is a sign of increasing cooperation between Egypt and Hamas, which now share a mutual concern about the rise of Islamic State types in their respective territories. Hamas recognizes that it needs to cooperate with Egypt, whether because of challenges to its power in the Gaza Strip from Islamic State affiliates or just because it sees an opportunity to improve life for Palestinians. And for all the reports about Turkish- and Qatari- and EU-backed truce negotiations, the border opening demonstrates the important role Egypt can play when it is in its interest. It is with this grounding in the concrete that one can begin to separate the significant from the insignificant in this most recent spate of rumors.