On Tuesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that fighting in Gaza would resume, unless ‘our hostages’ were released by Saturday. The prime minister’s statement followed US President Donald Trump’s demand a day earlier that ‘all hell’ would ‘break out’ unless all the Israeli hostages were released by Saturday.
While these statements might superficially appear to be in alignment, there is an ambiguity to the Israeli prime minister’s words which reflects the complexity of Netanyahu’s current situation.
Netanyahu’s statement, by contrast, suggests that if Hamas continues to implement the agreement, then a return to conflict might be avoided at this stage.
Trump’s call, explicitly, was for the immediate return of all the remaining hostages. Netanyahu’s, however, might be interpreted as referring only to the three whose release had been scheduled for Saturday. The difference here is significant. Trump’s ultimatum, if followed, implies that a failure by Hamas to release all remaining hostages on Saturday will bring about the collapse of the ceasefire deal in its entirety, inevitably followed by a swift return to fighting. Netanyahu’s statement, by contrast, suggests that if Hamas continues to implement the agreement, then a return to conflict might be avoided at this stage.
Trump’s words appeared to reflect an impatience with the details of the deal, and an underlying fury against Hamas in response to recent evidence of its shocking mistreatment of the Israeli hostages. This jibes with the US President’s other recent comments regarding the need for root and branch change in Gaza, including the relocation of its population to neighboring countries before its reconstruction.
One can only speculate, of course, regarding the extent of coordination between the American President and the Israeli prime minister in this regard. But the general impression is that senior Israelis have been as surprised by Trump’s recent statements as everyone else. Netanyahu, consequently, appears to be engaged in deliberate ambiguity, in order to avoid confrontation with 1. Trump – the prime minister doesn’t want to seem not to be endorsing the US President’s much more forceful demands, 2. The hard right wing element in the Israeli Cabinet, who are similarly alert to any sense that Netanyahu might not fully behind the defeat and destruction of Hamas and 3. The hostages’ families and their many supporters among the Israeli public, who fear that any return to conflict might endanger the survival of the remaining hostages.
The Israeli prime minister, in other words, is seeking to keep his options open. But what, in fact, is his preferred direction?
It has been clear from the start that the implementation of the first phase of the deal does not indicate an ending of the war, or a comprehensive failure of Israel’s war aims. This is because this phase involves the delaying of talks regarding a permanent ceasefire and future governance in Gaza, and includes the continued deployment of the Israel Defense Forces within the area. To be sure, it involves painful Israeli concessions. In return for the release of 33 hostages, Israel is to release 1900 Palestinian prisoners, including people serving life sentences for the deliberate murder of Israeli civilians. Yet this phase does not close the door on a subsequent continued prosecution of the war.
In return for the release of 33 hostages, Israel is to release 1900 Palestinian prisoners, including people serving life sentences for the deliberate murder of Israeli civilians.
The second phase of the agreement, by contrast, is set to put in place arrangements which will attest to the conclusive failure of Israel’s war effort. This second phase is to include a permanent ceasefire, and the complete withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza, along with the freeing of an additional large number of Palestinian prisoners, in return for the freeing of the remaining hostages.
The central, stated aim of Israel’s ground offensive in Gaza was the destruction of the Hamas governing authority in this area. This Hamas authority, in power since 2007, was the structure which ordered and carried out the massacres of October 7, 2023. Anything less than the removal of Hamas from power in Gaza will be seen by all sides and by outside observers, justifiably, as the failure of Israeli war aims.
Currently, these aims have not yet been achieved. Hamas remains the de facto power in Gaza in all areas where Israel is not present. The first phase of the ceasefire deal leaves this question open. The second phase does not. It sets the result in stone.
Given this, it appears likely that the Israeli prime minister’s aim is to complete the implementation of the first phase, after which a return to military operations aiming at the destruction of the Hamas authority will take place. At that point, somewhere between 20 to 30 living hostages would remain in Gaza. Netanyahu’s statement subtly distanced him from Trump’s position, because the demand for the release of all hostages at this stage would threaten to collapse the deal prematurely, preventing the release of the remaining hostages scheduled to be freed in phase 1.
So if this is Netanyahu’s plan, will it work? Hamas will be aiming to frustrate any further Israeli military effort by the simple and devastating tactic that it has maintained throughout: namely, seeking to mobilise Israeli public opinion against the Israeli government by threatening the death or permanent incarceration in brutal conditions of the remaining hostages, unless Israel acquiesces to continued Hamas rule. The Palestinian Islamists evidently think that they have cracked the code of something fundamental to Israel’s societal DNA, and can frustrate Israel’s advance and ensure victory for as long as this aspect remains available for activation.
Hamas has placed a simple and psychotically cruel dilemma before Israeli decisionmakers: accept the loss of civilian hostages, or accept the loss of the war.
They are unlikely to change this assessment based on the small number of hostages that will remain after the first phase of the agreement. After all, they will reason, in 2006, Israel released 1027 prisoners (including the late Yahya Sinwar, architect of October 7) in return for a single Israeli hostage, the IDF soldier Gilad Shalit. Hamas will thus conclude that any Israeli effort to return to the war will be rapidly frustrated by the reapplication of this tactic.
Are they wrong? From the start, Hamas has placed a simple and psychotically cruel dilemma before Israeli decisionmakers: accept the loss of civilian hostages, or accept the loss of the war. They have believed (with considerable evidence) that Israel’s leaders will always prefer the latter option. Israeli victory in Gaza, and an appropriate outcome to the war Hamas commenced with the slaughter of October 7 depends on Netanyahu at a certain point choosing the former. What will he (and Israel) choose? On this question hangs the outcome of the Gaza war, probably also the future direction of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and possibly also the long term viability of Israel itself.
