Far-right allies of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are raising pressure on the embattled leader to reject a new Gaza ceasefire, jeopardising his government’s stability if he backs away from an assault on Hamas in Rafah.
Hamas representatives were due in Cairo on Monday as mediators step up efforts toward a ceasefire deal ahead of a threatened Israeli storming of Rafah, an area by the Egyptian border, where around a million Palestinians displaced by Israel’s military campaign elsewhere in Gaza are sheltering.
But Israel says four remaining battalions of Palestinian Islamist group Hamas are entrenched there – after over six months of war triggered by Hamas’ cross-border strike on Oct. 7 – and that it will attack them after evacuating civilians.
However, if a ceasefire is agreed, the attack plans will be shelved in favour of a “period of sustained calm”, according to a source briefed on the talks, during which a few dozen hostages of Hamas will be released in return for Palestinian prisoners.
On Sunday, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich urged Netanyahu not to back away from a ground offensive against Hamas in Rafah, even as the premier is grappling with pressure from international allies to scrap assault plans due to the risk of high civilian casualties and a humanitarian disaster.
But a ceasefire would be a humiliating defeat, Smotrich said in a video he released to the press and addressed to Netanyahu. If it fails to stamp out Hamas, “a government headed by you will have no right to exist,” he said.
Smotrich was swiftly followed by police minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who reposted on X a Jan. 30 remark made during a previous round of ceasefire talks: “Reminder: An irresponsible deal = the government’s dissolution.”
Netanyahu’s office and his conservative Likud party have not issued a response to the ministers’ statements. His spokespeople were not immediately available for comment on Monday, which marked the Jewish holiday of Passover.
But Benny Gantz, a centrist former defence minister who joined Netanyahu’s emergency war cabinet in October, offered his own rebuke, saying that freeing hostages took precedence over an assault on Rafah.
The rejection of a responsible deal that would secure a hostage release, Gantz said in a statement, would strip the government of any legitimacy – given its Oct. 7 security failure and the clamour in Israel for the return of hostages.
