Netanyahu’s real objective seems increasingly clear: a gradual slide toward an authoritarian-style regime, whose survival he will try to ensure through perpetual warfare on multiple fronts. Even in the video he released about his attempt to oust Bar, Netanyahu spoke of “a war on seven fronts.” And the hostages? From Netanyahu’s perspective, it seems they can die in the tunnels—knowing that they contributed to his continued grip on power.
By Amos HAREL
There is no other way to explain it: Israel knowingly violated the ceasefire agreement with Hamas – with America’s approval – because it did not want to fully fulfill the terms it had pledged to two months earlier. Hamas is a murderous terrorist organization, and the war began on its own initiative and responsibility with the surprise attack in southern Israel on October 7. But Hamas’s psychological abuse of the hostages and their families during the final stages of the release cannot be described as a significant breach of the agreement on its part. It was the Israeli government that failed to honor the agreement when it failed to complete the promised withdrawal of IDF forces from the Gaza Strip in recent weeks, particularly from the Philadelphia Corridor along the Gaza-Egypt border.
Hamas refused to turn a blind eye and move forward with the release of the hostages under new mediation proposals presented by the Americans, causing the negotiations to stall. In response, Israel resumed fighting early Tuesday morning.
According to Hamas, more than 320 (currently over 400, ed.) Palestinians were killed in a series of airstrikes in Gaza, including senior Hamas officials and employees of the group’s government offices. The bodies of Palestinians killed in an Israeli army airstrike were brought to Shifa Hospital in Gaza City on Tuesday. What follows could include more massive airstrikes, but also the implementation of a new and extensive ground maneuver in Gaza, led by the new IDF Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir, in the hope of finally defeating Hamas. Zamir has said that implementing the plan would require several IDF divisions. This would again require a large-scale call-up of reserves – for the first time in conditions when there is no real public consensus on the justification for returning to war.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is likely to argue that only renewed military pressure will enable the return of the 59 hostages, both alive and dead, from Gaza. But this justification is no longer convincing. Nearly 40 hostages have died in Gaza under various circumstances since they were taken alive from Israeli territory on October 7. The renewed military pressure clearly endangers the surviving hostages, could further worsen their already unbearable conditions in captivity and, in an extreme scenario, could even push Hamas to harm some of them in retaliation.
One of the things that emerged clearly from the testimonies of some of the hostages released in the past two months is that Hamas frequently moved them to different locations. Israel’s security agencies did not have accurate real-time information on the whereabouts of many of them. This means that it will be impossible to carry out air strikes and a ground operation with the confidence that the hostages will not be harmed. The day before the Israeli attack on Gaza, the United States and the United Kingdom launched a new and massive attack against the Houthis in Yemen. US President Donald Trump threatened to hit them harder than they have ever been hit before – but especially significant was his explicit threat against Iran. Trump said he would consider any Houthi attack on Americans to be an act committed by the regime in Tehran.
The threat comes as the US tries to bring Iran back into negotiations to curb its nuclear program, but it also increases tensions on the military front between the two countries. Since the Gaza ceasefire, the Houthis had stopped firing missiles and drones at Israel. Now, it is likely they will resume efforts to strike central Israel in solidarity with Hamas.
Meanwhile, Netanyahu’s efforts to oust Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar are ongoing. When Netanyahu held the brief conversation to dismiss Bar on Sunday evening, both men already knew that the decision to resume the war on Hamas was imminent. Bar also participated in the limited consultations Netanyahu held on Monday evening before the airstrikes in Gaza. Only under Netanyahu could such a situation exist: if he does not trust the Shin Bet chief, as he claims, why does he continue to include him in the most classified forums? Given the ongoing investigation of three of Netanyahu’s advisers on charges of receiving funds from Qatar, Netanyahu should have avoided any move regarding Bar.
There is also something troubling about Netanyahu’s settling scores with Bar, especially since the Shin Bet’s internal investigation into the October 7 security failures includes harsh accusations against Netanyahu for his policy of transferring Qatari funds to Hamas.
The report even mentions that the Shin Bet had warned the prime minister at the time that some of the money was being used directly for terrorist activities. At this point, it is not entirely out of the question that the government will try to push through Bar’s dismissal in the coming days – even as the war is being renewed. Israel’s operation in Gaza will be justified as a necessary step to break the deadlock in negotiations while also fulfilling Netanyahu’s promise to defeat Hamas – although the timelines for these two goals are not aligned. The hostages may die before Hamas is defeated, if it is to be defeated at all. But above all, there are a number of urgent political goals that the prime minister will not publicly acknowledge: the return of Itamar Ben-Gvir and his far-right Otzma Yehudi faction to the government, the approval of the budget and the stabilization of the coalition.
This time, Netanyahu’s political survival truly depends on keeping up the pressure on Gaza – including an effort to divert media attention from renewed anti-government protests over the plan to dismiss Bar.
Netanyahu’s real objective seems increasingly clear: a gradual slide toward an authoritarian-style regime, whose survival he will try to ensure through perpetual warfare on multiple fronts. Even in the video he released about his attempt to oust Bar, Netanyahu spoke of “a war on seven fronts.” And the hostages? From Netanyahu’s perspective, it seems they can die in the tunnels—knowing that they contributed to his continued grip on power.
