A split has opened up within Israel’s political and military leadership over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s insistence on a comprehensive deal to end the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip, according to four officials with knowledge of the internal deliberations.
Several leading figures in the military, the Mossad spy agency and the government are calling instead for a return to the phased approach to resolving the conflict, beginning with a temporary truce.
Netanyahu and other senior ministers now favor a more elusive deal that aims to free all the remaining hostages at once and end the war on terms set by Israel — terms that Hamas has so far rejected. The phased approach would free about half the hostages initially in exchange for a number of Palestinian prisoners.
Those opposing Netanyahu’s stance include the military chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir; David Barnea, the head of Israel’s Mossad spy agency; Tzachi Hanegbi, Netanyahu’s national security adviser; and Foreign Minister Gideon Saar, according to the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive issue. The opponents have not commented publicly. The prime minister’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment, and the Israeli military declined to comment.
Hamas recently said it would agree to the latest proposal for a phased ceasefire deal put forward by Egypt and Qatar, two mediating countries. A temporary truce would postpone Israel’s planned advance into the heart of Gaza City, which the government portrays as one of Hamas’ last strongholds.
The opponents of Netanyahu’s position generally attend meetings of Israel’s security Cabinet, a small group of political and security leaders. Security Cabinet discussions are classified, but local news reports described a meeting on Sunday as stormy.
As preparations for the military’s advance on Gaza City move ahead, and with negotiations for a truce at an impasse, it is not clear what, if any, influence these opponents will have. Zamir, who will play a major role in this next phase of the war, has also expressed reservations about the planned Gaza City campaign.
While Netanyahu has not publicly ruled out a phased deal, and may be holding out for better terms, some of his ministers have described the gradual approach as no longer relevant.
The phased deal would begin with a 60-day ceasefire and the start of negotiations for a long-term cessation of hostilities along with the release of the remaining hostages, living and deceased, in exchange for more Palestinian prisoners.
Even before Hamas announced its broad acceptance of the phased deal in mid-August, Netanyahu appeared to have switched gears to focus on reaching an “all-or-nothing” deal, with the support of the Trump administration.
For most of the past year, Netanyahu had insisted that negotiations for a Gaza ceasefire be focused solely on a phased deal on the grounds that a comprehensive deal on Israel’s terms would be too hard to achieve, and a temporary ceasefire gave Israel the option of going back to fighting.
About a month ago, Steve Witkoff, the Trump administration’s special envoy for peace missions, said in a meeting with families of the hostages that President Donald Trump wanted to see all the living hostages released at once. Israel believes that about 20 captives are still alive out of a total of 48 who remain in Gaza.
The spokesperson for Qatar’s Foreign Ministry, Majed al-Ansari, told journalists at a briefing on Tuesday that Israel had not yet responded to Hamas’ acceptance of a ceasefire in phases.
The debate over different approaches to a ceasefire is highly charged for families of the hostages and many other Israelis. A partial deal would mean choosing which hostages get released first and who gets left behind. There would be no guarantee that negotiations for the next phase would succeed where they failed before, or that Hamas would ultimately be willing to relinquish all its hostages, which would leave the group without leverage.
Images released recently by the captors of weak and emaciated hostages have underlined the urgency of their situation, leading many Israelis to conclude it would be better to at least get 10 out alive sooner, rather than try to negotiate a more complicated, comprehensive deal.
The government says the aim of the proposed military operation is to root Hamas out of one of its last strongholds and achieve a decisive victory over the group that led the deadly attack against Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, which set off the war.
There is growing skepticism that Israel could now achieve militarily what it has not managed to accomplish in the 22 months of war.
Zamir has also pushed back in recent weeks against the government’s insistence on extending full military control over Gaza City, according to Israeli security officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive issues.
He has shared concerns about the exhaustion and fitness of reservists, these officials said, amid warnings that expanding operations could endanger the hostages and kill more Palestinian civilians.
In the security Cabinet meeting on Sunday, Zamir again warned against the planned takeover of Gaza City on the grounds that it could lead to the military becoming solely responsible for the administration of Gaza, according to a fifth official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the Cabinet’s confidential deliberations.
Yet there are signs that plans for the offensive are moving ahead.
The military said Tuesday that thousands of reservists who had been called up in preparation for the operation in Gaza City were reporting for duty as part of what it called a gradual force buildup.
Several thousand reservists already in active duty have had their orders of service prolonged for this operation, the military added.
Avichay Adraee, the military’s Arabic language spokesperson, said “enhanced services” — including food, water and medical care — would be available in southern Gaza, where people were being urged to move from Gaza City in the north. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who remain in Gaza City are threatened with forced displacement.
The military has said it called up an additional 60,000 reservists in all and has announced plans to extend the service of 20,000 more. The vast majority are not expected to deploy to Gaza. Instead, officials have said, the reservists will remain in Israel and replace active-duty troops who will advance into the enclave.
The new orders have angered many reservists. About 15 men and women who identified themselves as Israeli reservists criticized the call-up at a news conference on Tuesday and in a billboard campaign, faces of reservists were featured with the slogan, “When will we say ENOUGH?!”
“We didn’t enlist to sacrifice hostages,” and “We didn’t enlist to occupy Gaza,” other billboards read.
The military says it already controls at least 75% of Gaza.
As forces were preparing to launch the new offensive, an Israeli airstrike on a three-story apartment building in Gaza City on Tuesday killed 11 people and trapped seven others under the rubble, said Mahmoud Basal, a spokesperson for the Palestinian Civil Defense in Gaza, an emergency rescue service under the Hamas-run Interior Ministry.
It was not immediately known if the seven who were trapped, all believed to be children, including a year-old baby, were still alive.
They were among several dozen people in Gaza reported killed Tuesday, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants.
In developments on Tuesday:
A record 11,040 Palestinians are being held in Israeli prisons as of September 1, according to data published by Israeli human rights organization HaMoked.
The non-governmental organization, which relies on information from the Israeli prison authority, said this is the highest number to date.
More than half of these detainees are being held outside of regular judicial proceedings, according to HaMoked: 3,577 so-called administrative detainees and 2,662 “unlawful combatants.”
Many of the combatants were arrested during the Gaza conflict.
Under administrative detention, suspects can be held for security reasons for six months or longer without official charges. This occurs when individuals are linked to a crime but there is insufficient evidence for a charge.
As the measure is mostly based on intelligence information, the detainees and their lawyers cannot view the evidence and cannot effectively defend themselves.
Human rights organizations have been calling on Israel to end this practice for decades. However, the Shin Bet domestic intelligence service justifies this form of detention as a necessary tool in the fight against terrorism.
According to the Jerusalem Post daily, the current number of administrative detainees is about three times higher than during the second Palestinian uprising, the Intifada (2000-2005), when constant Palestinian attacks took place.
▪ Israeli soldiers have arrested Hebron Mayor Tayseer Abu Sneineh, sparking anger in the West Bank city where officials fear for their autonomy.
The Hebron city council sharply condemned the arrest. It said a large contingent of troops broke into Abu Sneineh’s home overnight and destroyed the interior.
When asked for comment, the Israeli military pointed to the domestic intelligence agency Shin Bet. Israeli sources said Abu Sneineh faces accusations of supporting Hamas and Islamic Jihad, as well as incitement against Israel.
But the city administration in Hebron, a city of some 200,000 located south of Jerusalem, claimed the arrest was politically motivated.
“This brutal attack is not only directed against the mayor himself, but also against the will of the people of Hebron and their elected institutions,” it said.
The arrest constitutes a “flagrant attack on the democratic process as well as the right of our people to take care of their own affairs and to serve the city in liberty and dignity.”
Palestinian media said the arrest was an attempt by Israel to establish an alternative Palestinian leadership in the city, replacing the autonomous Palestinian Authority (PA).
Leading sheikhs in Hebron had presented a plan in July to establish an emirate in the city that would maintain peaceful relations with Israel.
But the proposal sparked outrage among other Palestinian representatives, describing it as a betrayal of the Palestinian cause. Observers fear events in Hebron could be the first step in dissolving the PA across the entire occupied West Bank.
Israeli far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has been calling for the dissolution of the PA and the annexation of the West Bank by Israel.
The PA administers parts of the occupied West Bank, while the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) serves as the official representation of the Palestinians at the international level.
Both entities are separate from Hamas.
The old town of Hebron, where several hundred Israeli settlers live, is controlled by the Israeli military.
Belgian Foreign Minister Maxime Prévot said early on Tuesday that his country would recognize Palestinian statehood at the U.N. General Assembly later in September, with conditions.
“Palestine will be recognized by Belgium during the UN session,” Prévot said in a post on social media platform X, adding that strong action would also be taken against the Israeli government and against any “anti-Semitism or glorification of terrorism by Hamas supporters.”
Prévot cited the “humanitarian tragedy in Palestine, and in particular in Gaza,” as well as “the violence perpetrated by Israel in violation of international law” and the country’s “failure to prevent the risk of genocide” as reasons behind the decision.
“This is not about sanctioning the Israeli people, but about ensuring that their government respects international and humanitarian law and taking action to try to change the situation on the ground,” the foreign minister continued.
Prévot stressed that the “administrative formalization” of the recognition of Palestinian statehood by royal decree would only take place when the last hostage has been released and Hamas no longer has any control over Palestine.
The foreign minister said that 12 measures would be taken at a national level, including a ban on importing products from Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories, which are illegal under international law.
Prévot also cited the inclusion of “two extremist Israeli ministers, several violent settlers, and Hamas leaders on our country’s list of ‘persona non grata’.”
Belgium’s announcement follows a similar shift by a number of countries, including France and Canada, which said they would recognize Palestinian statehood at the General Assembly set to take place in New York starting Sept. 9. The move is vehemently opposed by Israel and its most important backer, the United States.
Almost 150 U.N. member states already recognize Palestinian statehood.
(Miami Herald)
