A sense of unease has washed over Israel as fearsome as the unseasonably cold winter storms now crashing on its Mediterranean shores. Just over halfway into the country’s fragile, six-week truce with Hamas to halt the fighting in Gaza, the Islamist terrorist group has announced that it will “suspend” the release of additional Israeli hostages outlined in the ceasefire framework.

Beyond this latest round of Israeli-Hamas tit-for-tat is the deeper uncertainty caused by Donald Trump, who last week stunned the world with his plan for the US to take control of Gaza and send its two million residents packing. Among Israelis, Trump’s scheme has elicited both derision and applause. There’s unease on the streets about this latest injection of political uncertainty but also a feeling that change is overdue and necessary to end the fighting in Gaza.

Taking off: Arkia is heading to New York

This is my third visit to Israel since the Hamas attack two Octobers ago and the country continues to evolve to accommodate the new normal. In the past week, Israeli airline Arkia launched a new direct service between Tel Aviv and New York to combat the surging cost of travel to the US and the draining economic effect of American carriers scrapping scheduled flights to the country. The resumption of United Airlines flights, however, is still a month away and Delta Airlines won’t recommence its service until April, meaning that Israel remains relatively isolated from the global economy on which its technology sector is so dependent. If the ceasefire falls apart, the US carriers will almost certainly cancel those services, further hurting Israel’s economy, which contracted markedly in 2024 after decades of robust growth.

As the country prepares for a weekend when three more hostages are supposed to return home, the talk has now shifted to a return to fighting. If Hamas doesn’t turn over those hostages, Israel could pursue a ruthless punishment programme that would cause even more suffering for millions of Palestinians. Trump might be signalling his support for such manoeuvres but the global community and much of the Israeli public are unlikely to be so sanguine. Such uncertainty could ultimately have the most detrimental effect on Israel, deterring foreign investment as much as foreign airlines and sending the economy into a serious chill, if not a freeze. Israel is already contending with its rising cultural-pariah status. Even during wartime, extending this to its exports could prove one blow too many.

David Christopher Kaufman is an editor and columnist at the ‘New York Post’. For more opinion, analysis and insight, subscribe to Monocle today.