Thus turning his back on the Trump and other Middle eastern countries….
As the ceasefire in Gaza extended from days into weeks, and newly freed hostages began sharing grim details of their captivity, Benjamin Netanyahu’s political room for manoeuvre seemed to shrink.
He was caught between the far-right parties propping up his government, keen to return to war in Gaza, and the majority of Israelis who prioritised the fate of the remaining hostages over the “total defeat” of Hamas demanded by their prime minister.
Public opinion polls showed broad support for a second stage of the ceasefire deal, which would mean a full withdrawal of Israeli troops from the Gaza Strip and the return of all living hostages.
But his finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, who opposed the ceasefire deal from the start, had repeatedly threatened to quit if fighting didn’t resume, and Netanyahu has to coral his fractious coalition through a critical vote this month. If the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, doesn’t approve an overdue budget for 2025 by 31 March, the government will be automatically dissolved and the country will hold early elections…..
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For many in Israel, the overnight bombardment of Gaza, the deadliest since the early months of the war in 2023, was a clear sign Netanyahu had made a political decision about the future of the conflict.
Campaigners for hostages still held in Hamas captivity attacked it as an immense betrayal. Ayala Metzger, whose father-in-law Yoram Metzger was kidnapped to Gaza and killed in Hamas captivity, challenged Smotrich in parliament on Tuesday.
“There are deals on the table, and you are choosing to continue sacrificing more hostages and soldiers,” Metzger shouted at him in parliament, the Times of Israel reported. He ordered security to remove her, saying: “We paid [a price] too. Let’s not have a competition.”
Nor did criticism come only from the left, or the families most directly traumatised by the Hamas attacks on 7 October 2023 that began the war.
Retired Maj Gen Amos Yadlin, former head of Israel’s military intelligence directorate, said that restarting the war while hostages were still in Gaza would undermine the military’s effectiveness in operations there and damage morale.
“A responsible Israeli leader, who has no internal political consideration, would bring all the hostages back in one group, up front, [in return] for ending the war, and then will take care of the second goal of the war to dismantle Hamas,” he said in a briefing to journalists on Tuesday.
“When Israeli reservists came [to serve] in October 2023, their main motivation was to bring back the hostages. Now someone has to convince them that the ground operation will bring back the hostages [alive], not bring them back dead. This is a tough job,” he added.
Those cracks in morale have already started showing. The military announced on Tuesday it had dismissed a combat navigator from the reserves who said he would not report for duty in protest at the government’s conduct, the Haaretz newspaper reported. The air force said it was an isolated case, but some senior officials are concerned that others will follow suit…..
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