Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appears to have finally relented. After refusing for more than a year to agree to an end to the war in Gaza, he is now pushing for a ceasefire that mediators insist will do just that.
Netanyahu's government met on Friday to approve the deal, which would involve prisoner and prisoner exchanges, a gradual Israeli troop withdrawal from Gaza and an end to Israel's devastating war in the Palestinian enclave.
The implementation is set to begin on Sunday, when the Israeli prime minister is likely to start facing criticism as he faces opposition within his own government. The opposition is repeating what he has long insisted: the war will not end until Hamas is destroyed.
Far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gwir proudly claims that he has used his power to block any prisoner release deal over the past year, declaring the deal currently on the table "horrible" and saying Insisting he and his party would quit the government if the bill was implemented.
But this was not enough to bring down Netanyahu’s government. Bengvir needs the support of his far-right counterpart, Finance Minister Bezarel Smotrich and his Religious Zionist party. Smotrich appeared willing to move forward with the deal, but only during the first phase, which would see the release of some Israeli prisoners. Religious Zionism has since said its members will resign from government positions unless the war in Gaza - which has killed more than 46,700 Palestinians so far - continues.
Despite these threats to Netanyahu's rule, he appears to be moving on. The planned ceasefire comes one day ahead of a deadline set by incoming U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, the day of his inauguration on Monday.
Israel's far right sees Trump, a pro-Israel Republican who plans to bring into his administration several politicians with close ties to Israel's settler movement, as their choice will turn a blind eye while the movement realizes its dream. Establishing illegal settlements in Gaza and expelling their residents.
That does not appear to be the case at the moment, with Trump emphasizing that he wants to end the war before taking office.
While this may seem detrimental to Netanyahu at first glance, the perception that the Trump administration may pressure him to act may be politically useful to the Israeli prime minister in the short term, giving him more room to maneuver in the future.
"This may be more transactional than many people think," said Mairav Zonzein, an Israel expert at the International Crisis Group, suggesting that Israel's longest-serving leader may not be so easily forced to act.
"By agreeing now, Netanyahu may have bought himself greater freedom to act in the West Bank and determine the future of Gaza," she said, referring to far-right Israel's annexation of occupied Palestine Territorial plans. Israeli settlements, which are illegal under international law.
"Everyone knows that at some point, the prisoners have to be exchanged. That's always the case. For many people, it's not even a security issue. For many people, it's a security issue of who is going to rule Gaza," she pointed out. is the third phase of the ceasefire agreement, and then said that by agreeing to a ceasefire now, Netanyahu can be more convinced of the goodwill of the United States. Dealing with Gaza in the future.
Since returning to office in late 2022, Netanyahu has been close to far-right members of the government. While others on the Israeli right abandoned Netanyahu over the ongoing corruption trial, it was Ben-Gevir and Smotrich who supported Netanyahu and were unpopular with much of the Israeli public.
Without them, he would not have been able to assemble a governing coalition; without them, the thinking goes, his government would have collapsed, and with it, he would have had no chance of gaining immunity from prosecution.
But Netanyahu, long known as the great survivor, appears to have another survival plan.
Most in his government support the ceasefire, including key ultra-Orthodox religious groups. The opposition has also offered to provide Netanyahu with a safety net to ensure the deal passes.
The prime minister has been well aware of how the Israeli public feels, and analysts say he may have realized that people are now more open to a deal that would return captives and end Israel. war.
It helps that Israel can claim that it has re-established deterrence while its enemies - including Hamas, the Lebanese group Hezbollah and, most importantly, Iran - have been dealt a heavy blow.
But the triumphalism about these geopolitical victories has given way to a sense of acceptance and abandonment that the war needs to end, says Israeli political scientist Ori Goldberg.
"No one really celebrated," Goldberg said. "Everyone knew this had to come. Israelis have been living in a kind of limbo for the past 15 months. Life has become difficult for many Israelis, although not as difficult as we have made it for the Palestinians, But it’s also difficult.”
"For 15 months we have been told we were on the verge of absolute victory, yet we have achieved nothing but destruction and killing," Goldberg added. "We're tired. Don't get me wrong — if Gaza was safe, a lot of people would still eliminate it — but we tried our best and we still didn't get there."
“The Israelis are exhausted,” he continued. "With any luck, the first six weeks should be enough to build some momentum towards a settlement."
Netanyahu may therefore be able to gain himself another political execution by capitalizing on public sentiment, even before any new elections, by portraying himself as the man who will end the war and achieve multiple strategic goals.
But for Israeli society, in addition to prisoners held in Gaza, soldiers returning in coffins from Gaza and Lebanon, and Israel's growing international isolation, there are costs to waging a massive war that human rights groups characterize as genocide.
Indeed, for many observers, the Israel emerging from the massacre in Gaza is a far cry from the state it was in before the Hamas-led attack on October 7, 2023, that killed 1,139 people.
In the ensuing war, the far right in Israeli politics took over the center and the security services expanded their reach beyond what many had previously thought possible.
In May, a paper published by two prominent Israeli academics, Eugene Kandel and Ron Tzur, argued that given the country’s divisions caused by the war in Gaza and the Netanyahu government’s attempts to Freed from judicial oversight, "Israel will likely not be able to exist as a sovereign Jewish state for decades to come."
“There is definitely moral corruption in Israel,” said Dr. Guy Shalev, executive director of Physicians for Human Rights Israel, which has documented the denial of medical aid and torture to Palestinians.
"Human life, especially Palestinian life, was considered worthless before the war and the devaluation has been dramatic," Shalev said.
Shalev added: "Such a massive loss of life and the government's disregard for the lives of the (Israeli) hostages erodes what we in Hebrew call 'arvut hadadit,' which refers to the sense of shared responsibility that binds all Jews "I think fundamentally if Palestinian lives don't matter, then ultimately all lives won't matter."