What has Netanyahu won and lost by agreeing to Israel-Gaza ceasefire?

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appears to have finally relented. After refusing to agree to end the Gaza war for more than a year, he is now pushing for a ceasefire deal that mediators insist will finally end the war.

Netanyahu’s government met on Friday to approve the deal, which would involve a swap of captives and prisoners, a phased Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, and an end to the destructive war Israel has waged on the Palestinian enclave. Implementation is scheduled to begin on Sunday, at which point the Israeli Prime Minister may face opposition from within his own government, the very voices that have long insisted: the war won’t end until Hamas is destroyed.

Far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir proudly proclaimed he had used his power to prevent any captive release deals from being reached over the past year. He declared the current deal “terrible” and insisted he and his party would quit the government if it went through. However, this is not enough to topple Netanyahu’s government. Ben-Gvir needs the support of his far-right colleague, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and his Religious Zionist Party. Smotrich appears willing to move ahead with the deal but only the first phase, which would see the release of some Israeli captives. After that, the Religious Zionist Party says its members will quit the government unless the war on Gaza, which has killed more than 46,700 Palestinians to date, continues.

Despite the threats to his rule, Netanyahu appears determined to press ahead. The ceasefire plan is set to begin just a day before a deadline set by US President-elect Donald Trump, who takes office on Monday, his inauguration day. The Israeli far-right had considered Trump an ally, a pro-Israel Republican who planned to bring several politicians with close ties to the Israeli settler movement into his government. They believed Trump would turn a blind eye, allowing the movement to realize its dream of establishing illegal settlements in Gaza and expelling its inhabitants. However, this does not appear to be the case, with Trump stressing he wants the war ended before he takes office.

“This may be more transactional than many people think,” said Merav Zonszein, an Israel expert at the International Crisis Group. She suggested Israel’s longest-serving leader may not be so easily backed into a corner. “By agreeing now, Netanyahu may be buying himself greater freedom of action in the West Bank and for whatever future is agreed on for Gaza.” She was referring to the plans of the Israeli far-right to annex occupied Palestinian territory, which is riddled with Israeli settlements deemed illegal under international law. She added: “Everyone knew that at some point the captives had to be exchanged. It was always going to be the case. For many, it’s not even a security question. For many, the security question is who is going to rule Gaza.” She argued that by agreeing to a ceasefire now, Netanyahu could be more certain of American goodwill when dealing with Gaza in the future.

Since returning to office in late 2022, Netanyahu has been closely aligned with the far-right members of his government. It was Ben-Gvir and Smotrich who propped up Netanyahu when other Israeli right-wingers abandoned him because of his ongoing corruption trial and his unpopularity among the Israeli public. Without them, he could not have cobbled together a governing coalition, and it was thought that without them his government would fall and his chance of avoiding prosecution would vanish. But Netanyahu, long known as the great survivor, seems to have another survival plan.

Most of his government supports a ceasefire, including the important ultra-Orthodox religious bloc. The opposition has also indicated it is willing to provide Netanyahu with a safety net to see the deal through. Analysts say the Prime Minister has a good grasp of the Israeli public’s feelings, and he may have realized that public opinion is now more in favor of a deal that brings the captives home and ends the war. Israel can argue that it has restored its deterrence and that its enemies, including Hamas, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and most importantly, Iran, have been dealt a heavy blow. But Israeli political scientist Ori Goldberg says the triumphalism over these geopolitical victories has given way to a sense of acceptance and resignation that the war needs to end.

“No one is really celebrating,” Goldberg said. “Everyone knew this was going to happen sooner or later. Israelis have been living in a daze for the past 15 months. Many Israelis have had it tough, not as tough as what we have inflicted on the Palestinians, but tough nonetheless.” He added: “For 15 months we have been told that we were on the verge of absolute victory, but we have achieved nothing but destruction and killing. We are tired of it. Don’t get me wrong – many would still destroy Gaza if it guaranteed security – but we have given it our best shot and we are still not secure.”

He continued: “Israelis are exhausted. If we are lucky, the initial six weeks should be enough to develop a momentum towards a settlement.” Thus, Netanyahu may be able to ride the public mood, even before any new elections, to paint himself as the man who ended the war and achieved a number of strategic goals, thus buying himself another political reprieve. But for Israeli society, the cost of waging war on what human rights groups have called a genocidal scale, in addition to the captives held in Gaza, the coffins of soldiers returning from Gaza and Lebanon, and Israel’s growing international isolation, has been high.

Indeed, for many observers, the Israel that has emerged from the carnage in Gaza is a very different place from the Israel that existed before the Hamas-led attacks of October 7, 2023, which killed 1,139 people. In the war that followed, the far-right of Israeli politics has taken center stage, and the security services have extended their reach far beyond what many previously thought possible. In a paper written in May, two prominent Israeli academics, Eugene Kandel and Ron Zurel, argued that, given the rifts caused by the country’s war on Gaza and the Netanyahu government’s attempts to escape judicial oversight, “there is a strong possibility that Israel will not be able to exist as a sovereign Jewish state in the coming decades.”

“There is definitely a moral corruption inside Israel,” said Dr Guy Shalev, the executive director of Physicians for Human Rights Israel, which documents the denial of medical aid and torture of Palestinians. “The devaluation of human life, especially Palestinian life, which was not highly valued before the war, has decreased dramatically,” Shalev said. “This loss of life on such a massive scale, as well as the government’s disregard for the lives of (Israeli) hostages, is eroding what we call in Hebrew ‘arvut hadadit,’ which refers to the sense of mutual responsibility that binds all Jews,” Shalev added. “I think that fundamentally, if Palestinian lives don’t matter, eventually all lives will matter less.”