The images that emerged on 19 January from Gaza and Israel felt like a much-longed-for reprieve. Three hostages, young Israeli women, were freed from Hamas captivity and united with their families in Israel. Gaza journalists were taking off body armour vests. Palestinian prisoners, mostly women who have been held without trial for many months, were released from Israeli prisons in the West Bank. After 471 bleak, long days, a ceasefire came into effect. Many hope that this war could finally be over.
It started with Hamas’s devastating 7 October attack, which was the deadliest day in Israel’s history, with close to 800 civilians slain, and 251 people (overwhelmingly civilians) taken hostage. It was followed by Israel’s 15 months’ war against Gaza, one of the fiercest military campaigns against a civilian population in the 21st century. The death toll in Gaza stands at 46,600, and yet a peer-reviewed study in the Lancet suggested the real figure is likely higher by tens of thousands. The majority killed are estimated to be women, children and the elderly.
The three-phase ceasefire agreement puts forward a framework to end the war. Yet it is an outcome that falls far short of the “total victory” over Hamas that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised Israelis a year ago. For many of his supporters and political partners, the ceasefire is an unwelcome development. The Israeli hard right saw the war as a “miraculous” opportunity to fulfil its vision for what could be termed the second Israeli Republic: an authoritarian and exclusively Jewish state from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, which would come about by subjugating, destroying and driving out the Palestinian people. The hard right, which is the glue that allows the coalition to govern, will not easily let go of this vision.
From the very beginning, there was an obvious contradiction between the military destruction of Hamas and the safe return of the hostages. By the evening of 7 October 2023, the picture was still chaotic, yet it was known that there were dozens if not hundreds of Israeli hostages in Gaza. Nevertheless, the Israeli cabinet’s statement that night did not mention the return of the hostages and promised only to destroy Hamas. Only a week later did the government add the return of the hostages to its war aims, alongside the destruction of Hamas’s military and governing capabilities. Yet Israeli bombardment and ground operations put the hostages at risk. Indeed, several were killed by Israel Defence Forces’ fire. Only eight were rescued in such operations, which killed hundreds of Palestinian civilians.
The first ceasefire agreement, negotiated in November 2023, brought back 105 hostages, mostly women and children, in return for 240 Palestinian prisoners. That agreement showed the hostages could only be returned through negotiations. Yet when the Israeli government resumed fighting after just a week of ceasefire, there was no pushback. Many Israelis were still traumatised by the 7 October attack, and felt it was wrong to protest. At the same time, the desire for retribution was still widely felt.
In January 2024, Netanyahu pledged Israel would not stop until it secured “total victory” over Hamas. He never explained what that meant and how it would be achieved. If Hamas was to be destroyed, the remaining hostages would likely be killed. And who would govern Gaza? The Israeli government ruled out direct military occupation over the Palestinian population there, but also refused to discuss any alternatives. It repeatedly rejected calls to allow the Palestinian Authority – which controlled the Strip prior to Hamas taking over in 2007 – any foothold in Gaza.
Netanyahu and Hamas had unwritten understandings for years; both detested the Oslo Accords, which were meant to be a precursor to a two-state solution. Between 2014 and 2023, Netanyahu allowed the transfer of Qatari funds to Hamas through Israel, believing that Islamist rule over Gaza provided a perfect pretext to rule out Palestinian statehood. The return of the Palestinian Authority to Gaza would end this excuse.
By the summer of 2024, virtually the entire population in Gaza, two million people, was displaced, mostly living in tents in the “humanitarian zone”. Israel established large enclaves and “corridors”, bisecting the Strip. In April 2024 Netanyahu declared that Israel was “one step away from victory”. The incursions, raids and assassinations continued. By October 2024, Israel had killed most of the Hamas leadership, including military chief Mohammed Deif, Gaza leader Yahya Sinwar, and the head of Hamas’s political bureau Ismail Haniyeh. After more than 15 months, this is Israel’s longest war ever. Yet victory remains elusive, and the government still refuses to spell out its terms for the end of the war.
Israel’s extreme right wing has had no such qualms. “Total victory”, for them, meant the reoccupation of the Gaza Strip, the destruction of the Palestinian urban and social fabric, and the establishment of Jewish settlements in Gaza. One hard-right member of the Knesset, Orit Strook, described the war as a “miraculous” opportunity to reshape the political and demographic reality between the river and the sea. That faction portrayed Palestinians in Gaza as potential terrorists, and said most of them would need to leave in what some Israeli ministers called “voluntary emigration”, though it was clear there was nothing voluntary about it. Similar would be implemented in the West Bank.
Neither the Israeli government nor the military officially adopted these ideas, and on occasion distanced themselves from the rhetoric of permanent occupation and settlement. And yet, Israeli operations in Gaza corresponded to hard-right blueprints of total destruction. Gaza has been decimated: most homes are destroyed or heavily damaged; all of Gaza’s universities are in rubble. Most hospitals and schools have been attacked; public infrastructure has been bombed. All these pointed to a sustained effort to make the Strip permanently unliveable for Palestinians, in a manner that paves the way to their expulsion.
This became clear in the last four months of operations in northern Gaza, as Israel forced tens of thousands out, destroyed medical facilities, limited the access of aid, and demolished practically the entire built environment. Israel’s former chief of staff and defence minister, Moshe Ya’alon, in November called it ethnic cleansing. It appears impossible not to connect the genocidal discourse, widespread among Israeli politicians and military commanders, and Israel’s aggressive and devastating operations in Gaza, with no clear aim other than destruction itself.
The levelling of Gaza should be seen in the context of the government’s radical agenda in the West Bank and in Israel “proper”. Institutional and legal changes under the finance minister Bezalel Smotrich, namely the transfer of oversight of Palestinians and Israeli settlers from military hands to the government, is considered by many as the de jure annexation of the West Bank. Under Itamar Ben-Gvir, then the minister for national security, the police force was transformed into the government’s militia, cracking down on anti-government protesters. Constitutional amendments have been rushed through the Knesset to curtail the power of the judiciary and to limit the democratic participation of Palestinian citizens in elections. Israel is descending towards an authoritarian-theocratic regime, built around the principles of Jewish-Israeli supremacy.
And then came the ceasefire agreement. Bowing to heavy pressure from Donald Trump, Netanyahu agreed to withdraw many of the demands that prevented the agreement at least since May 2024. Now, for example, he has agreed to withdraw Israeli forces from the Gaza-Egyptian border (the Philadelphi Corridor), after previously describing it as a strategic asset that Israel could never relinquish.
For the hard right, the agreement is a real blow as it threatens to derail their dreams of ethnic cleansing. Ben-Gvir and his ultra-nationalist party, Jewish Power, resigned from the government on 19 January; Smotrich threatened to do the same. The government’s mouthpieces in the right-wing media struggle to explain Netanyahu’s flip-flop.
The sight of Hamas militiamen openly roaming in Gaza makes a mockery of Netanyahu’s “total victory”. Yet the re-emergence was inevitable given the lack of any alternative plan. The emergence of a legitimate Palestinian governing body in Gaza could prompt calls to establish a Palestinian state in Gaza and the West Bank. This is anathema for Netanyahu and his government. Instead, we may be seeing a revival of his and Hamas’s belligerent pact. The group’s survival provides Netanyahu with an excuse to extend the war indefinitely, as he fears he would be forced out once it is over. It is widely assumed he will try to sabotage the negotiations over the ceasefire’s next phase and resume the fighting.
The success of the ceasefire depends on the Israeli public. The release of the first three hostages triggered an outpouring of emotions. For the first time, speaker after speaker on Israeli mainstream channels emphasised that the government must bring all the hostages home and end the war. It appears that now, unlike in November 2023 when the first ceasefire agreement collapsed, most Israelis would not accept ending the agreement before the return of all hostages. Resuming the war would almost inevitably mean the death of the remaining hostages, for no obvious objective other than the continued destruction of Gaza.
But public sentiment is one thing, and government policy may be another. Even after the departure of Ben-Gvir and his party from government, the coalition still has a slim majority of 62 out of 120 Knesset seats, and it can afford to ignore public opinion. It would take mass demonstrations – which haven’t been seen since summer 2023 – to force the government to change course. It may well lead to its collapse, and new elections – something around 70 per cent of Israelis want.
The other factor is Trump. Indications so far suggest that the new US administration is determined to follow the agreement through and end the war, and that it intends to force Netanyahu to do so. The grand plan, which has been in the background for years, is to orchestrate a public rapprochement between Saudi Arabia and Israel, while moving towards a vague notion of Palestinian statehood. Such a development is extremely unlikely under Netanyahu. It is also unclear how much pressure the White House would be willing to put on the Israeli prime minister, given that Israel’s hard right has strong allies in Trump’s circles. It is doubtful whether the Trump administration has the stamina and patience necessary to oversee Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. Trump’s radical domestic agenda may soon demand all his attention.
There is reason for some short-term optimism. Israeli bombings in Gaza, which killed dozens daily, have ceased. Aid is expected to flow into the Strip, bringing some relief. The return of the hostages may allow Israeli society finally to move beyond the trauma of 7 October, and perhaps more would begin to realise the scale of Israeli atrocities in Gaza.
But this is shaky ground. For the reconstruction of Gaza to begin, a political horizon is necessary. It is difficult to see an Israeli government – even if Netanyahu is replaced – willing to engage in such a process. For the coming months, perhaps even years, two million Palestinians in Gaza will continue to live in makeshift camps, in terrible conditions. This is a fertile ground for instability and violence. The Israeli hard right’s grand vision to destroy and expel the Palestinian people between the river and the sea, and establish a new Jewish regime, remains a real and serious threat, even if it appears to have suffered a setback.
[See also: The return of Donald Trump]
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This article appears in the 22 Jan 2025 issue of the New Statesman, Messiah Complex