HOPES to get the sputtering peace process in the Middle East moving forward again were rekindled last week after Hamas and Hezbollah indicated they were willing to reopen negotiations for a ceasefire with their arch-foe, Israel.

Hamas has said it was now ready to discuss a truce and hostage exchange in Gaza, something it had long refused to consider. Hezbollah has endorsed a similar ceasefire in Lebanon.

While these developments are welcome, they must be taken with guarded optimism. Previous initiatives to bring the warring sides to the negotiating table have flamed out because no one was willing to bend their hardline stance just enough to allow room for compromise.

It came to a point where Qatar quit as a mediator in the Gaza conflict, saying Hamas and Israel lack the "willingness and seriousness" to come to terms.

Hamas, however, seems to have dialed down its recalcitrance and accepted a proposal crafted earlier by Qatar and fellow intermediary Egypt.

Under the proposal, Hamas will release its hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners, after which Israel will pull out all its forces from Gaza, creating a "period of sustainable calm" that will eventually allow the reconstruction of the war-ravaged Palestinian enclave.

It was practically the same deal the United States had pushed months ago that Hamas had flatly rejected. This time, however, the Palestinian group substituted the phrase "period of sustainable calm" for the term "ceasefire," which had been a major sticking point.

Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Israel is understandably cautious about the Hamas offer, saying it was "very far from Israel's core demands."

Still, it did not stop Netanyahu from sending a delegation to Cairo for a more detailed look at the proposal.

The war in Gaza has been raging for more than a year, and every day, the state sinks deeper into a quagmire. More than 43,000 people have been killed, almost all of them civilians caught in the crossfire as Israeli troops continue to dismantle Hamas' political and military structure. Millions of Gazans are homeless and have been denied humanitarian assistance because an Israeli blockade has reduced the delivery of food, medicines, water and other vital provisions to a trickle.

Israel justifies the cutting off of relief supplies by accusing international relief agencies of collaborating with Hamas.

In Lebanon, there is tentative progress in securing a ceasefire amid Israel's relentless bombardment of Hezbollah strongholds in the capital Beirut and deepening incursion into the southern countryside.

A proposal by the US and Israel reportedly calls for an Israeli pullout from Lebanon. In exchange, Hezbollah fighters will withdraw north of the Litani River, away from Lebanon's border with Israel.

A United Nations peacekeeping force and Lebanese troops will be deployed in the buffer zone to monitor and enforce the truce.

A senior Lebanese official is said to have indicated that Hezbollah is willing to move its forces away from the border. That's a promising sign.

The group's leader itself, Naim Qassem, has endorsed the ceasefire. "We support the political efforts led by (Lebanese parliament speaker Nabih) Berri under the banner of achieving a ceasefire. Once the ceasefire is firmly established and diplomacy can reach it, all other details will be discussed, and decisions will be made collaboratively," Qassem said.

The Beirut government is all too eager to have a ceasefire in place. At least 3,000 Lebanese have been killed since Israeli launched rocket attacks in October last year in retaliation against Hezbollah's missile barrages as a show of solidarity with Hamas.

The economic losses — placed by the World Bank at $8.5 billion — are staggering for Lebanon, which was on the verge of a financial collapse five years ago.

Lebanon has been harboring Hezbollah at the behest of Iran. But anti-Hezbollah sentiment has been simmering in Beirut's political circles and could reach boiling point if the war continues indefinitely.

Hamas and Hezbollah have taken a bold first move. A new opportunity to prevent the conflict in the Middle East from escalating has presented itself. It would be tragic if it, too, falls by the wayside.