Israel’s renewed operation in Gaza is framed as a way to break the deadlock in hostage talks and defeat Hamas – but Netanyahu’s real aim is a series of urgent political goals: restoring Ben-Gvir to the government, passing the budget and shoring up his coalition.
There’s no other way to explain it: Israel knowingly violated the cease-fire agreement with Hamas – with American approval – because it didn’t want to fully meet the terms it had committed to two months ago.
It was Israel’s government that failed to uphold the agreement when it didn’t complete the promised withdrawal of IDF forces from the Gaza Strip in recent weeks, particularly from the Philadelphi route along the Gaza-Egypt border.
Hamas refused to turn a blind eye and move forward with the release of hostages under the new mediation proposals put forward by the Americans, which caused the negotiations to stall. In response, Israel resumed fighting early Tuesday morning.
According to Hamas, more than 320 Palestinians were killed in a series of airstrikes in Gaza, including senior Hamas officials and employees of the group’s government offices.
What follows may include more massive airstrikes, but also the implementation of a new and wide-ranging ground maneuver in Gaza, led by the new IDF Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir, in hopes of finally defeating Hamas.
Zamir has said that carrying out the plan would require several IDF divisions. This would again require a large-scale reserve call-up – for the first time under conditions where there is no real public consensus on the justification for returning to war.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will likely argue that only renewed military pressure will enable the return of the 59 hostages, both living and dead, from Gaza. But that justification is no longer convincing.
Nearly 40 hostages have died in Gaza under various circumstances since they were taken hostage alive from Israeli territory on October 7. Renewed military pressure clearly endangers the surviving hostages, could further worsen their already unbearable conditions in captivity, and in an extreme scenario, might 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 between different locations.
Israel’s security agencies did not have real-time accurate intelligence on the whereabouts of many of them. This means that it will be impossible to carry out airstrikes and a ground operation with confidence that the hostages won’t be harmed.
A day before the Israeli attack in Gaza, the United States and the United Kingdom launched a new and massive attack against the Houthis in Yemen.
U.S. President Donald Trump threatened to strike them harder than they’ve ever been hit before – but particularly noteworthy was his explicit threat against Iran. Trump said he would consider any Houthi attack on Americans as an act committed by the regime in Tehran.
This threat comes as the U.S. is trying to bring Iran back to negotiations to halt its nuclear program, but it also raises tensions on the military front between the two countries.
Since the cease-fire in Gaza, the Houthis had stopped launching rockets and drones at Israel. Now, it’s likely they will resume attempts to strike central Israel in solidarity with Hamas.
Netanyahu’s distraction
Meanwhile, Netanyahu’s efforts to oust Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar are ongoing. When Netanyahu held the brief dismissal conversation with Bar on Sunday evening, both of them already knew that the decision to resume fighting against Hamas was imminent. Bar also participated in the limited consultations that Netanyahu held on Monday evening ahead of the airstrikes in Gaza.
Only under Netanyahu could such a situation exist: if he has no confidence in the head of the Shin Bet, as he claims, why does he continue to include him in the most classified forums?
Given the ongoing investigation into three of Netanyahu’s advisers over allegations of receiving funds from Qatar, Netanyahu should have avoided making any moves regarding Bar. There’s also something troubling about Netanyahu’s score-settling with Bar, especially since the Shin Bet’s internal investigation into the security failures of October 7 includes harsh accusations against Netanyahu over 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 directly used for terrorist activity. At this point, it’s not entirely out of the question that the government will try to push forward with Bar’s dismissal in the coming days – even while the war is being renewed.
Israel’s operation in Gaza will be justified as a necessary step to break the deadlock in negotiations while simultaneously fulfilling Netanyahu’s promise to defeat Hamas – even though the timelines for these two goals are not aligned. The hostages could die before Hamas is defeated, if it’s defeated at all.
But above all, this is about a series of urgent political goals that the prime minister won’t admit to publicly: restoring Itamar Ben-Gvir and his far-right Otzma Yehudit faction to the government, passing the budget and stabilizing the coalition.
This time, Netanyahu’s political survival truly depends on maintaining the pressure in Gaza – including an attempt to divert media attention from the renewed protests against the government over the plan to fire Bar.
Netanyahu’s true objective appears increasingly clear: a gradual slide toward an authoritarian-style regime, whose survival he will try to secure through perpetual war on multiple fronts.
Even in the video he released regarding his attempt to fire Bar, Netanyahu spoke about “a war on seven fronts.” And the hostages? From Netanyahu’s perspective, it seems they can die in the tunnels – knowing they contributed to his continued grip on power.
