For nearly two years, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has gone out of his strategy to keep away from agreeing to a Gaza ceasefire.
In November 2023, a deal noticed the discharge of 110 captives taken throughout Hamas’s October 7 assault on Israel.
However every week later, Netanyahu refused to increase the ceasefire, leaving the remainder of the captives behind.
Since then, each time a ceasefire has gave the impression to be inside attain, Netanyahu has shifted the goalposts. In Could 2024, Hamas accepted a proposed deal, however Israel denied agreeing and invaded Rafah as a substitute. By September, Netanyahu had launched a brand new situation: everlasting Israeli management of the Philadelphi Hall – the realm between Egypt and Gaza – which each Cairo and Hamas rejected.
Later, after pushing the place that solely a partial deal can be agreed to, Netanyahu modified the parameters and insisted that Israel would solely conform to a deal that will see all of the captives launched – and never in return for an finish to the battle.
Even when allies superior proposals, Netanyahu sidestepped them. Additionally in Could 2024, then-US President Joe Biden introduced that Israel had offered a ceasefire plan, however Netanyahu stayed silent, and no deal adopted.
When a deal was agreed and applied, Netanyahu ensured it broke down. In January 2025, beneath strain from incoming US President Donald Trump, Netanyahu accepted a phased ceasefire deal that will proceed till a remaining settlement to finish the battle was agreed. But by March, Israel unilaterally violated it, resuming bombardment and blockade.
And final week, as Hamas negotiators met in Doha to debate a brand new US-backed proposal, Israel bombed them, successfully sabotaging the talks.
Plates spinning
The Israeli authorities would insist that offers haven’t been reached as a result of the Palestinian group Hamas has not been an trustworthy dealer, and since it is going to try to rearm have to be eradicated.
However after the assault in Doha, Einav Zangauker, the mom of Israeli captive Matan Zangauker, who has been held in Gaza for nearly two years, was clear about who was responsible.
“Why does the prime minister [Netanyahu] insist on blowing up any deal that comes near taking place? Why?” she requested rhetorically.
Why certainly.
Netanyahu is Israel’s longest-serving prime minister. One of many causes for his success is his skill to maintain a number of plates spinning – to juggle totally different priorities, even when they’re generally contradictory, with out resolving them absolutely.
With the ability to juggle these priorities permits Netanyahu to push away choices that would result in him shedding assist from the general public or from his political allies. And in a rustic like Israel, the place parliamentary politics is predicated on who can maintain the largest coalition, that’s important.
Netanyahu can also be going through home authorized bother – he’s on trial for corruption – and staying in energy is most certainly his greatest wager at avoiding jail.
Coming again to the query of a Gaza ceasefire, Netanyahu has a elementary drawback: he’s beholden to the messianic far proper to prop up his authorities, and so they have made it clear: an finish to the battle at this stage will see them stroll away from the prime minister’s coalition, virtually definitely inflicting it to break down.
The far proper – Israelis like Nationwide Safety Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich – wish to push Palestinians out of Gaza and herald Israeli settlers to reside within the land left empty by these ethnically cleansed.
Netanyahu may not be fully averse to that aim, however he additionally understands the problem in reaching it. Even Israel can be stretched militarily if it have been to attempt to conquer and maintain the entire of the Gaza Strip, and months or years of high-intensity battle would trigger extra dissent from a navy that’s closely reliant on calling up hundreds of Israelis as reservists.
And, in fact, such a brazen try at ethnic cleaning would additional isolate Israel internationally.
What comes subsequent?
As a substitute, Netanyahu retains the plates spinning. He retains Ben-Gvir and Smotrich on his aspect by by no means agreeing to finish the battle, strings alongside mediators by sending negotiation groups to debate proposals he gained’t settle for, and by no means absolutely commits to the navy battle that will be essential to attempt to fully take Gaza.
He insists that Hamas can’t be allowed to rule Gaza and rejects the Palestinian Authority ruling the enclave, whereas additionally saying Israel doesn’t wish to management it.
How lengthy can Netanyahu maintain this up? There have been instances when he struggled, and it virtually got here crashing down.
Trump didn’t wish to take “no” for a solution in January, forcing Netanyahu to conform to a deal that had been on the desk for greater than six months. That led to Ben-Gvir resigning his authorities place and Smotrich threatening to resign his if the deal progressed and led to an finish to the battle.
As beforehand talked about, it didn’t. And Ben-Gvir shortly got here again. Trump says contradictory issues about ending the battle, solely to by no means firmly inform Netanyahu to cease.
The following Israeli elections must happen earlier than October 2026. Maybe Netanyahu will have the ability to current sufficient wins to the voters – he can already argue that he has weakened Hamas, defeated Hezbollah, and bombed Iran’s nuclear websites – to get sufficient assist that he’s now not reliant on Ben-Gvir and Smotrich and might finish the battle on his phrases, no matter they might be.
Or maybe the battle continues, probably with pauses, just for Israel to return to bombing Gaza when it feels the necessity to.
Alternatively, persevering with the battle for ever and ever might enhance each overseas and home opposition, ramping up the strain on Netanyahu till he’s both pressured to decide on ending the battle or faces defeat on the poll field in 2026.
The Palestinians of Gaza – of whom Israel has killed greater than 64,800 – are the last word casualties of the dragging out of this battle, in addition to the Israeli captives nonetheless held in Gaza.
For now, they are going to maintain struggling – as Netanyahu retains his plates spinning.
