For nearly two years, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has gone out of his approach 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, at any time when a ceasefire has gave the impression to be inside attain, Netanyahu has shifted the goalposts. In Might 2024, Hamas accepted a proposed deal, however Israel denied agreeing and invaded Rafah as an alternative. 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 might see all of the captives launched – and never in return for an finish to the warfare.
Even when allies superior proposals, Netanyahu sidestepped them. Additionally in Might 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 carried out, Netanyahu ensured it broke down. In January 2025, beneath stress from incoming US President Donald Trump, Netanyahu accepted a phased ceasefire deal that might proceed till a last settlement to finish the warfare 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 sincere dealer, and since it’ll try to rearm should 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 accountable.
“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 capacity to maintain a number of plates spinning – to juggle completely different priorities, even when they’re typically contradictory, with out resolving them absolutely.
Having the ability to juggle these priorities permits Netanyahu to push away choices that might result in him shedding help from the general public or from his political allies. And in a rustic like Israel, the place parliamentary politics relies on who can preserve the most important coalition, that’s important.
Netanyahu can also be dealing with home authorized hassle – he’s on trial for corruption – and staying in energy is probably his greatest guess at avoiding jail.
Coming again to the query of a Gaza ceasefire, Netanyahu has a basic 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 warfare at this stage will see them stroll away from the prime minister’s coalition, nearly definitely inflicting it to break down.
The far proper – Israelis like Nationwide Safety Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich – need to push Palestinians out of Gaza and herald Israeli settlers to reside within the land left empty by these ethnically cleansed.
Netanyahu won’t be fully averse to that objective, however he additionally understands the problem in reaching it. Even Israel can be stretched militarily if it have been to attempt to conquer and preserve 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 facet by by no means agreeing to finish the warfare, strings alongside mediators by sending negotiation groups to debate proposals he received’t settle for, and by no means absolutely commits to the navy battle that might 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 need to management it.
How lengthy can Netanyahu preserve this up? There have been occasions when he struggled, and it nearly got here crashing down.
Trump didn’t need 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 warfare.
As beforehand talked about, it didn’t. And Ben-Gvir shortly got here again. Trump says contradictory issues about ending the warfare, 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 help that he’s not reliant on Ben-Gvir and Smotrich and may finish the warfare on his phrases, no matter they might be.
Or maybe the warfare continues, probably with pauses, just for Israel to return to bombing Gaza when it feels the necessity to.
Alternatively, persevering with the warfare without end may enhance each overseas and home opposition, ramping up the stress on Netanyahu till he’s both compelled to decide on ending the warfare or faces defeat on the poll field in 2026.
The Palestinians of Gaza – of whom Israel has killed greater than 64,800 – are the final word casualties of the dragging out of this warfare, in addition to the Israeli captives nonetheless held in Gaza.
For now, they may preserve struggling – as Netanyahu retains his plates spinning.
