Netanyahu vows to continue military force in Gaza despite pressure on Israel to reach ceasefire

Globe and Mail

21 hours ago

Defying mounting domestic pressure and international outcry, as well as a new plea from some of his country's top former security officials, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed Monday to continue the war in Gaza.
Speaking after a weekend of large protests in Tel Aviv and other cities calling for the government to accept a ceasefire deal that would see Hamas release the remaining hostages it is holding in Gaza, Mr. Netanyahu made it clear he would pursue a military solution instead.
Mr. Netanyahu told a Monday meeting of his government that he would convene Israel's security cabinet later in the week and direct the country's military to continue to pursue the trio of war objectives he had set for them.
'We must continue to stand together and fight together in order to achieve the objectives of the war we have set, all of them: Defeating the enemy, releasing our hostages and ensuring that Gaza will never again threaten Israel,' Mr. Netanyahu said. He made no mention of any ceasefire negotiations during the parts of the government meeting that were open to the public.
Israeli forces kill over 20 Palestinians seeking food in Gaza, health officials say
Mr. Netanyahu's insistence on a military solution goes against the advice of much of the country's security establishment. On Sunday, 600 former senior officers of the Israeli military, as well as the Mossad and Shin Bet intelligence services, wrote to U.S. President Donald Trump, urging him to use his influence to force Mr. Netanyahu to end the almost 22-month-old war.
'We urge you to end the Gaza war,' reads the letter, which was signed by a group called Commanders for Israel's Security, and published by several Israeli media outlets. The group said Israel had 'long accomplished' all it could militarily, and that only a negotiated solution could return the 22 living hostages that have been held by Hamas since the militia's Oct. 7, 2023, attack on southern Israel. The Islamist militia is also believed to be holding the bodies of another 27 dead Israelis.
'It is our professional judgment that Hamas no longer poses a strategic threat to Israel,' the group of commanders wrote. 'Chasing remaining senior Hamas operatives can be done later. Our hostages can't wait.'
Addressing Mr. Trump directly, the group called on him to 'end the war, return the hostages, stop the suffering,' and to forge a regional coalition to support the efforts of the secular Palestinian Authority, or PA, to offer itself as an alternative to Hamas.
More than 60,000 Palestinians have been killed since the start of the war in Gaza, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health. Another 40 were reportedly killed by Israeli fire on Monday alone, including 10 who were killed near aid sites maintained by the controversial U.S. organization. Five other deaths were attributed to starvation.
Gaza's hospitals have now recorded 180 deaths – including 93 children – as being the result of starvation, as human-rights groups have warned that famine is spreading among the 2.1 million residents of the narrow coastal territory.
Last week, the international aid group Save the Children said they were seeing record rates of malnutrition among kids, something the group said was a result of the Israeli government's restrictions on food aid entering the territory. 'This is starvation of children by design,' said Ahmad Alhendawi, Save the Children's regional director for the Middle East, Eastern Europe and North Africa. On Monday, the group said that 40 per cent of the pregnant and breastfeeding women visiting its Gaza clinics were malnourished.
The humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza has pushed long-time Israeli allies Canada, France and Britain to announce plans to recognize a Palestinian state at next month's meeting of the United Nations General Assembly. (While the French move appears to be unconditional, Canada's planned recognition of Palestine is contingent on the PA adopting a series of democratic reforms, while Britain's is triggered if Israel doesn't agree to a ceasefire in Gaza and stop the construction of illegal settlements in the West Bank, which has been under Israeli military occupation since 1967.)
The diplomatic moves are intended to put pressure on Israel to end the fighting and move towards a two-state solution to the conflict.
Mitchell Barak, a Jerusalem-based pollster, said that Hamas – which dealt negotiations a blow on Saturday when it declared it won't disarm until a Palestinian state is established – also saw no reason to agree to a ceasefire at a time when the Israeli assault on Gaza was creating growing international sympathy for the Palestinian cause.
'Whereas Netanyahu is going towards achieving his total victory, his military victory, the total diplomatic victory is going to the Islamic resistance movement, to Hamas,' he said.
Calls from inside Israel for their government to accept a ceasefire deal spiked after Hamas and its ally Islamic Jihad released videos over the weekend showing two emaciated Israeli men being held in the tunnels beneath Gaza.
Videos of Israeli hostages increase pressure for ceasefire as warnings about famine in Gaza grow
The videos of 24-year-old Evyatar David and 22-year-old Rom Braslavsky – who were both taken hostage during the Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel that killed more than 1,200 people – provoked large demonstrations in Tel Aviv on Saturday night, including a protest that blocked the highway to the country's main airport. Mr. David was shown digging his own grave, while Mr. Braslavsky, in a separate video, said he was too weak from hunger to stand or walk.
Mr. Barak, a one-time adviser to Mr. Netanyahu, said that while about three-quarters of Israelis wanted to see an end to the war, that was less important to Mr. Netanyahu than holding together his cabinet, which includes far-right cabinet ministers who have said they will quit and bring down the government if it signs a ceasefire deal before Hamas is completely destroyed.
Mr. Netanyahu, who faces corruption charges at home – as well as an International Criminal Court warrant for his arrest in relation with alleged war crimes committed in Gaza – faces an uncertain personal and political future if his government collapses.
'Even though the majority of the people in this country want to stop the war, some of the hardcore elements within his government, meaning some in Likud and the Zionist religious parties want to keep it going,' Mr. Barak said, referring to Mr. Netanyahu's right-wing Likud party and its coalition allies. 'So, it's not relevant that 80 or 70 per cent of the country want to stop it.'