Netanyahu cools hopes for permanent Gaza ceasefire

It does not matter which country carries the burden of mediation to achieve a ceasefire in Gaza, the details of the draft agreement or whether the president of the United States, Joe Biden, says that “it is time to end” the war in Gaza. the fringe. In one way or another, the indirect dialogue between Israel and Hamas to exchange hostages for prisoners during a ceasefire has always ended, for half a year now, stumbling over the same stone: the end of the war. It is the price demanded by the Islamist militia, willing to hand over the hostages in phases, but only with the certainty that Israel will not resume the bombing halfway.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose far-right partners threaten to leave the coalition if he seals the agreement, refuses a permanent ceasefire without first “destroying” Hamas’s ability to fight and govern Gaza, something that, In his opinion, it has not happened yet and it is going through the offensive in Rafah. He reiterated it this Monday, cooling the hopes that Biden generated by solemnly announcing on Friday an “Israeli proposal” to end an invasion that claims dozens of lives every day in the Strip. “The war would stop to bring back the hostages. Then we will have conversations,” he said.

Biden’s speech on Friday already left several questions in the air. Why, if it was an Israeli proposal, was it made public by the president of one of the mediating countries, and not Netanyahu directly? Why, if Hamas received it “positively,” did the three mediating countries—the United States, Egypt and Qatar—feel the need to issue an unusual joint statement calling on the two sides to “conclude the agreement” and mentioning “the principles summarized by Biden”? Why did every time Biden urged Hamas to accept the deal he seemed to address Netanyahu? Why was he warning Israelis against getting bogged down in “an indefinite war in pursuit of some unnamed notion of ‘total victory’?”

Some of those questions have since been answered. This Monday, Netanyahu pointed out that there are “differences” between the true draft that his negotiating team put on the table and what Biden said. “The proposal he presented is incomplete. There are other details that the US president did not present to the public,” he said in a closed-door meeting before the parliamentary committee on Defense and Foreign Affairs, the contents of which are reported in local media.

Biden, apparently, sought just that: to force Netanyahu – a leader allergic to risky decisions and stepping down from power – to define himself, presenting only the parts of the plan that would put the most pressure on him. Nahum Barnea, one of the country’s main political commentators, was ironic about this this Monday in the newspaper Yediot Aharonot: “If Biden’s speech were a movie, it would have started with the label: ‘Inspired by real events.’”

Ambush

The idea of ​​this kind of ambush was also to expose everything that Netanyahu has been approving without lights or stenographers while repeating in public the same mantras about “total victory.” Or, as the political commentator Ben Caspit said in the newspaper Maariv: “Bringing him out of the closet in which he has become accustomed to hiding, exposing the Israeli proposal, presenting the situation clearly and defining the dilemma with intelligence and precision: […] ‘Go with the Americans, Saudis, Emiratis and the rest of the allies in the anti-Shia alliance or go with [sus socios ultraderechistas] Itamar Ben Gvir, Bezalel Smotrich and the young people of the hills [los colonos ultranacionalistas más radicales]”.

Netanyahu has no problem with the first of the three phases contemplated in the agreement. This is a truce of at least six weeks during which Hamas would hand over a portion of the hostages, both alive (women, elderly, sick and wounded) and dead. In exchange, Israel would release hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, allow displaced people in southern Gaza to return to the north (now prevented by checkpoints), withdraw its troops from populated areas and allow 600 trucks with aid to enter daily. humanitarian. Hamas, on the contrary, is not willing to waste one of its few tactical assets to achieve another temporary truce, like the one in November, which helped it gain points against its own in exchange for handing over, above all, children and the elderly.

The problem is the transition to the second, which would be negotiated during the six weeks (or more if necessary) of the first and which would conclude—as Biden said, citing the Israeli proposal—in a “permanent ceasefire.” The US president assured that Hamas has been crushed in eight months of war and could not carry out another attack like the one on October 7.

Netanyahu insists, however, that the guns will only fall completely silent when Israel has fulfilled its three objectives: “the destruction of Hamas’s military and governance capabilities, the release of all hostages and the guarantee that Gaza no longer represents a threat to Israel.” “The claim that we agreed to a ceasefire without our conditions being met is not true,” he stressed this Monday in Parliament.

“Biden, save them from Netanyahu”

Biden’s speech mobilized the Israeli opposition, motivated an extraordinary meeting of the war cabinet and forged the largest protest since the start of the war, with tens of thousands of people pressing in the streets of Tel Aviv for the pact to go ahead. One of the banners spoke for itself: “Biden, save them from Netanyahu,” in reference to the hostages.

According to a poll broadcast this Sunday by national television channel 13, 48% of Israelis support the agreement and 37% reject it as presented by the US president. Whatever your opinion, only a minority attributes noble considerations to Netanyahu. 53% believe that their political survival guides their decisions on the matter.

Netanyahu is under pressure from two sides. One is the social and political sector that pushes for an exchange, in the streets, in Parliament and in the war Government itself. The other, part of his party (Likud) and the far right, with which he has governed since 2022. His two main leaders, Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, promise to leave the Government if he signs the agreement. Ben Gvir, who is not part of the mini-cabinet that makes important decisions, accused Netanyahu this Monday of “whitewashing” the pact and was outraged because, he claims, they do not want to show him the draft. Smotrich considers a permanent ceasefire “dangerous” for the country’s security. Both want to depopulate Gaza of Palestinians, rebuild the Jewish settlements evacuated in 2005 and defend them with a permanent military presence.

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