Will Netanyahu's Iran ‘win' lead to a Gaza ceasefire?

Australia Broadcast Center

12 hours ago

Sydney Pead: Fresh from a military win against Iran, Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is turning his focus back to the conflict in Gaza, where he still faces immense public pressure to bring home Israeli hostages and end the war with Hamas. Today, Hussein Ibish from the Arab Gulf States Institute on whether new talks with the US could deliver a lasting ceasefire. I'm Sydney Pead, filling in for Sam Hawley. On Gadigal land in Sydney, this is ABC News Daily. Hussein, the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, he's going to visit the White House next week for talks with President Donald Trump. And that comes after Sunday, when Donald Trump took to social media to declare, in all caps, make the deal in Gaza, get the hostages back. So, Trump fancies himself a peacemaker. What do you make of this meeting and Trump's words?
Hussein Ibish: Well yeah, and in fact, Netanyahu has similarly been talking about opportunities having been opened up for ending the conflict, for getting hostages out and for resolving the war. He's been very vague. He hasn't said what they are. He hasn't drawn a direct line between the bombing campaign between Israel and Iran. But there is the implication that that somehow opens new possibilities. And that's what he said. It's pretty vague.
Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli Prime Minister: We have fought with strength against Iran and achieved a great victory. That victory opens an opportunity for a dramatic expansion of the peace agreements. We are working vigorously on that, along with the release of our hostages and the defeat of Hamas. There is a window of opportunity here that must not be wasted.
Hussein Ibish: I'm not sure exactly what they're talking about, but Israel does seem to think that its success against Iran has created a new aura of strength and a new freedom of action. And that's, I think, an intimidating thought, especially given the intensification of the war.
Sydney Pead: There has been an intensification just overnight. There's been a wave of fresh Israeli attacks across Gaza. And they came after one of the largest evacuation orders was issued in the Strip since fighting resumed in March. So, you know, while the world's attention has been on Iran in that so-called 12-day war, things are going from bad to worse in Gaza.
Hussein Ibish: In Gaza, it's been an utter disaster, right? And we've absolutely lost track of how many people have been killed. You know, to give you a sense of how bad things are in Gaza, 74 people have been killed in the past 24 hours, including a strike on a cafe where people were sheltering.
ABC Newsreader: The cafe had become a well-known spot for journalists and activists with seating and internet access among the dead, women and children.
Hussein Ibish: And again, you know, huge numbers of people and dozens of people killed at these food distribution centres. One of the things the Israelis have done is virtually eliminate the activities of the UN and credible humanitarian aid agencies that are usually responsible for distributing food in these situations. And they've kind of replaced that with a shadowy fund called the Gaza Humanitarian Fund, which is overseen by the Israeli military. And almost 600 Palestinians have been killed since late May at these food distribution centres because if the least thing seems to go wrong, the Israeli military just opens fire.
ABC Newsreader: Anger is palpable. Hunger, hunger, hunger, this man yells. These people had gone to eat. They went to get a morsel of food to eat. They said they were distributing aid. How do you call it aid and then shoot at people's children, he said.
Sydney Pead: The Israeli Defence Force has now acknowledged what it called inaccurate and uncalculated fire did kill civilians over the past month. It also says aid sites have now been reorganised and access improved to prevent further incidents. Benjamin Netanyahu has said all along the war could end tomorrow if Hamas surrenders and lays down its arms and all the hostages are returned. But what's changed for Israel's leaders? One major success for Netanyahu was that he was able to draw Trump into the Iran conflict and convince him to use the US military to pound Iran's nuclear sites. So how significant was that?
Hussein Ibish: Well, I think it looks great on paper because on paper you would say, well Israel has been trying to get the US to strike Iranian nuclear sites for 20 plus years and it never happened and then Netanyahu got it to happen. So good on Netanyahu. But that is a superficial reading. Because the one time, one strike, one and done as we say in the US, deal that Trump entered into with Iran and then enforced a ceasefire on the Israelis, which is not really what they were looking for, is not the strike at all that they were hoping for. This is not what they wanted to draw the United States into. They wanted to draw the United States into a protracted campaign of a couple of weeks to a month or even two months to destroy, really destroy Iran's nuclear facilities, not damage them. There's a great deal of damage but it's not smouldering embers.
Sydney Pead: Well, the US officials are pushing back on reports that doubted the level of damage to the Iranian nuclear program. The Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth was adamant about that.
Pete Hegseth, US Secretary of Defense: There's been a lot of discussion about what happened and what didn't happen. Step back for a second. Because of decisive military action, President Trump created the conditions to end the war, decimating, choose your word, obliterating, destroying Iran's nuclear capabilities.
Sydney Pead: But even if the conflict wasn't everything Netanyahu was hoping for, he was quick to play it off as a win. So how did it play out domestically for him? Because he's been under a lot of pressure from the Israeli public.
Hussein Ibish: Well, it looks great. It looks wonderful. It looks like Israel, and in fact it's true, that Israel itself went to war against Iran's nuclear facilities and scored terrific victories. We really don't know much about the impact of Iran's retaliation because of the extent of Israeli censorship. But it was, whatever it was, it was well within the acceptable range from an Israeli point of view. So this was highly successful. And so Netanyahu right now is in a great situation politically in Israel. He looks like the man who took the war to Hezbollah and won, to Iran and won, who was there when Assad fell, and who now only has to deal with Hamas to have dealt comprehensively with all of Israel's enemies one after another. And that's a very strong position for him to be in. The problem is he hasn't finished the Gaza war. There are still these hostages, and the war is by no means resolved. And it's just much harder to see how that finishes in a satisfactory way.
Sydney Pead: I guess I'm wondering if that sort of apparent success in the conflict has strengthened his political position within Israel, and will it enable Netanyahu to push back against some of the people within his own government who want to continue to expand the war?
Hussein Ibish: Yeah, I think so. I think he has the upper hand in Israel, and I think he has, to a very large extent, the upper hand against people inside his cabinet. On the other hand, he is still beholden to a couple of extremist parties, and they can bring him down, and he is still on trial.
ABC Newsreader: The Prime Minister has been on trial for corruption charges, which he denies, since 2020. Mr Netanyahu argued that he needs to deal with pressing national security and diplomatic matters, sparking speculation a Gaza ceasefire may be imminent.
Hussein Ibish: He still has a tiny majority, which means that small groups of extremists can really twist his arm, and he dare not fall, because he faces the prospect of conviction and incarceration.
Sydney Pead: Okay, so Hussein, Netanyahu, he's sort of been facing unpopularity among his own people because of his inability to bring all the hostages home, but he's had what looks like this successful campaign in Iran, and he's convinced Trump to get involved. Now there are these new talks which will happen between Trump and Netanyahu next week. So where does he stand now with the US President? Because Trump was extremely angry when it looked like the ceasefire he brokered was on shaky ground. So what does that relationship look like now?
Hussein Ibish: Yeah, well, Trump had a fit. I mean, let's face it.
Donald Trump, US President: We basically have two countries that have been fighting so long and so hard that they don't know what the f*** they're doing. Do you understand that?
Hussein Ibish: We've never seen a public meltdown like that, with Trump swearing at Netanyahu. He pretended he was swearing at the Iranian leaders too, but he really wasn't. He was swearing at Netanyahu, and that public swearing on television was followed by angry social media posts, and then finally an angry phone call. So personally, I think the relationship is very weak. But that doesn't matter, because politically, it's strong because both men needed to be strong. And as long as that's the case, it'll remain functional, and, you know, they don't have to like each other. They need each other to do what they need the other one to do.
Sydney Pead: At the NATO conference last week, Trump said he thought that he was very close to striking a deal on the conflict in Gaza.
Donald Trump, US President: I think great progress is being made on Gaza. I think because of this attack that we made, I think we're going to have some very good news...
Sydney Pead: There were two months of relative peace earlier this year when they came to a ceasefire deal and there were some hostages released by Hamas. What do we know about what this meeting between Trump and Netanyahu could deliver? Could they secure another ceasefire deal?
Hussein Ibish: I guess so. You know, it's definitely possible. Look, that ceasefire held until Netanyahu decided to break it. Steve Witkoff, who is Trump's envoy for these negotiations, has apparently issued another proposal calling for a 60-day ceasefire in exchange for the release of 10 living hostages and 18 corpses, and for also Palestinian prisoners. And then during that 60-day ceasefire, the two sides would negotiate a comprehensive ceasefire to end the war, which I think is necessary for Hamas to agree to anything. Hamas is not going to agree to anything that doesn't have the possibility of ending the war at some future extrapolated date. And, you know, Netanyahu wants nothing to do with a ceasefire that does not involve some form of categorical defeat for Hamas. I don't know what that looks like, frankly, because Hamas is not a list of people who can be killed or captured or a list of objects that can be destroyed. It's a brand name. It's a political brand. So you can't really defeat it in the long run. And certainly as long as there are a group of Palestinians in Gaza who say they're Hamas, then there is a Hamas.
Sydney Pead: Hussein Ibish is a resident senior scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington DC. This episode was produced by Kara Jensen-Mackinnon, audio production by Sam Dunn. Our supervising producer is David Coady. I am Sydney Pead. ABC News Daily will be back on air tomorrow. Thanks for listening.