The diplomatic flurry was over and Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu was on the phone telling President Joe Biden that it appeared the furious fighting between Israel and Hamas was about to end.
But Biden remained wary even after the afternoon phone call. Things still could go crosswise with hours to go before the cease-fire took effect, his team reasoned.
Nervous White House aides dialed contacts in Tel Aviv and Cairo to suss out whether the truce would hold. Officials in both the U.S.
and Israel worried that another barrage of Hamas rockets still could sink the Egyptian-brokered agreement, according to an official familiar with the conversations.