Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks to reporters on July 24, in Washington, DC.
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Despite weekly, sometimes daily, protests in Tel Aviv’s renamed Hostages Square and in other cities across Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has not been moved to do what multiple opinion polls show a majority of Israelis favor. This is, namely, making the return of the more than 100 hostages held in Gaza (around one-third of whom are believed to be dead) his top priority.
Netanyahu has long said he has three overriding goals in the war with Hamas. One specific red line, though, has now emerged: the so-called Philadelphi Corridor, a 14 kilometer-long (8.7 mile) strip of land separating Gaza from Egypt. Netanyahu is insisting on Israeli troops remaining there to prevent weapons-smuggling to Hamas, clashing on Thursday with Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.
This in itself infuriated many families of hostages. Learning that the bodies of their loved ones were discovered “shortly” before Israeli troops got to them on Saturday angered them more. News that at least three of them were slated to be released in the first phase of a mooted ceasefire deal has left them apoplectic and heartbroken.
So what now? Despite all the optimistic pronouncements of US President Joe Biden and others, a hostage-ceasefire deal remains elusive.
Netanyahu is no doubt mindful that his far-right coalition partners have threatened to bring down his government if he does any deal. Yet after nine months of on-off talks, many people are concluding that Netanyahu doesn’t want one.
And that neither, for that matter, does the architect of October 7 attacks, Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, who, perhaps in a tunnel near to where six young Israelis’ lifeless bodies were discovered on Saturday, sees the regional war he hoped to spark that day getting closer to becoming a reality.
