JERUSALEM — As the latest short-term cease-fire between Israel and Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip collapsed Tuesday, rockets from Gaza reached Tel Aviv and Jerusalem and Israel resumed airstrikes in Gaza. But the most telling move came in Cairo, where Israel yanked its team from talks aimed at a more durable truce.

The prospect of a negotiated and lasting peace had seemed distant from the start of the Cairo talks as each side set bottom-line goals that the other rejected.

After weeks of intermittent negotiations and fighting, analysts said that Israel’s leadership might well have considered it preferable to let the conflict continue at a low simmer and end informally rather than give concessions that could be seen as rewarding militants who fired about 3,000 rockets into Israel, penetrated its territory through tunnels, and killed 64 soldiers over a month of bloody battle.

“My approach would be not to go for any agreement with Hamas, because any agreement would give them something, and that’s a mistake,” said Dan Meridor, a former Israeli minister who served in several governments. “If the deal is seen by people as a victory for Hamas, that’s bad for us, it’s bad for the future, and bad for deterrence.”