On august 24th, six months after being selected as the new chief of staff of the Israel Defence Forces (idf), Lieutenant General Eyal Zamir broke publicly with his government’s policy. On a visit to a naval base, he said the idf had, in its previous operations in Gaza, “created the conditions for the release of the hostages”.
His use of the past tense was a pointed message to Binyamin Netanyahu, the prime minister. Israel’s most senior general opposes new orders he has been given to occupy Gaza city. He will obey, but he would rather see a ceasefire.
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The absence of any clear strategy from Israel’s government has led to tensions between the idf and Mr Netanyahu’s government throughout the Gaza war. In recent weeks the prime minister has taken his strategic prevarication to new levels. That is lethal for Gazans and dangerous for the hostages. But Mr Netanyahu is driven, as ever, by fears for his own political survival. Increasingly, he is looking further ahead, to elections due by October next year.
Ending the war would prompt his allies to abandon him. But the idf’s opposition makes it hard for him to expand it as much and as quickly as the far right would like. In early July he told the idf to start preparing a “humanitarian city”, a tiny corner of southern Gaza where the entire population of 2.1m would be concentrated while Israel’s troops destroyed Hamas in the rest of the territory. The idf pushed back, calling the plan unfeasible and illegal.
Mr Netanyahu changed course, opting for a smaller-scale plan focused on Gaza city, now home to nearly half the population. General Zamir objected once again, but was overruled. The idf has launched Operation Gideon’s Chariots B but so far only manoeuvred on the outskirts of Gaza city. Mr Netanyahu alternates between urging haste and tolerating delay.
His vacillation is killing Gazans. For over two months his government blocked all aid from entering the strip. Then it promoted aid hubs run by the shadowy Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, aimed at circumventing international aid organisations which Israel claims are captured by Hamas. Hundreds of hungry Gazans were killed trying to get to the hubs. There is famine in wide areas of the strip.
Israel has since allowed international aid groups, private companies and criminal gangs to bring in very limited quantities of food. On August 22nd the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, which monitors food shortages around the world, reported that parts of Gaza have reached famine levels of “starvation, destitution and death” (Israel has denied this, disputing the report’s methodology).
The government’s diplomacy has been similarly muddled. For months Israel has been engaged in indirect talks with Hamas aimed at securing a temporary ceasefire in Gaza in return for the release of half the hostages. This would have provided Gazans with some respite from Israel’s attacks, which have by now killed at least 60,000 people there, mostly civilians. The negotiations broke down and Mr Netanyahu, who had originally insisted on a brief ceasefire, now says he will only agree to one that brings all the hostages home and ends the war on Israel’s terms. A new temporary deal, brokered by Egypt and Qatar, to which Hamas has agreed, has received short shrift from his government.
Mr Netanyahu’s focus is again not on peace, but on his own political survival, both immediate and longer term. His strategy is based on two things: keeping his far-right coalition together; and hoping that eventually “victory” in Gaza will revive public trust in his leadership.
So far he has succeeded at the first bit. He has clung to office by continuing the war and dangling before the ultranationalist parties the prospect of realising their dream of annexing Gaza and the West Bank. They grumble that he is not decisive or far-reaching enough, but realise that under any other prime minister Israel would have stopped fighting in Gaza long ago.
On the second, though, he is failing. The Israeli public seems to have turned irrevocably against its longest-serving prime minister. Mr Netanyahu was convinced last year’s devastating campaign against Hizbullah, the heavily armed Shia militia in Lebanon, and the 12-day war with Iran in June, would show Israelis he was indispensable. But if anything those short, decisive wars highlighted the contrast with Gaza, where his government has dragged Israel into a bloody and unending morass against Hamas, a much weaker enemy. Three-quarters of Israelis support a deal to save the hostages and end the war. Hundreds of thousands have taken to the streets in recent days to demand one.
Decision time
Mr Netanyahu has paid them little heed. But by October 2026 at the latest, he will have to fight an election. The polls currently say he will lose. Rather than adjust course, he is doubling down on his hardline alliance, in the hope that, even if he fails to win a majority, a fragmented opposition will fail to form a coalition to oust him. That tactic has worked for him in the past but it is risky. It is reprehensible that political gamesmanship is Mr Netanyahu’s main focus, while Israeli hostages remain in captivity, and Gazans starve and die. ■
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