With some movement toward a resumption of Gaza cease-fire talks and an Israeli delegation having traveled for preliminary discussions with Qatari mediators, Israeli leaders jockeyed for position over what the nation might find acceptable.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on July 7 that any deal must allow Israel to keep fighting until it achieves its war objectives. He said it must prohibit weapons smuggling to Hamas via the Gaza Strip’s Egyptian border and block the return to northern Gaza of thousands of armed terrorists.
Two of Mr. Netanyahu’s right-wing coalition partners have said they would quit the coalition, potentially bringing down the government, if the war ends before Israel has eradicated Hamas and freed the hostages.
The head of Israel’s biggest opposition party, Yair Lapid, promised the prime minister “a safety net” so that he doesn’t have to choose between freeing the hostages and continuing as prime minister.
“Let him do the deal,” Mr. Lapid told his parliamentary faction at a meeting on July 8. “I promised him a safety net, and I will keep that promise.”
He cited the difficulty of making such an offer, given his opposition to Mr. Netanyahu, but “the most important thing is to bring the hostages home.”
The two right-wing parties in the coalition most opposed to a cease-fire have a combined 13 seats in Israel’s 120-seat Knesset. Mr. Lapid’s party has 24 seats.
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, a coalition member and head of a party representing Israelis living in the occupied West Bank—which they refer to as Judea and Samaria—said on July 8 that it would be a huge mistake for Israel to halt its offensive now.
“Hamas is collapsing and begging for a ceasefire,” he posted on social media platform X. “This is the time to squeeze the neck until we crush and break the enemy. To stop now, just before the end, and let him recover and fight us again, is a senseless folly.”
Over the weekend, Hamas appeared to have dropped a key demand for an Israeli commitment to end the war as a condition for Hamas to begin negotiations. Hamas said it would allow that condition to be reached through a six-week first phase of the talks. However, on July 7, a senior Hamas official told CBS that those reports weren’t accurate.
Israeli protesters, meanwhile, blocked highways, pushing for a deal to bring home the hostages and demanding that Mr. Netanyahu step down.
On July 8, senior U.S. officials said “gaps” remain between the Israeli and Hamas positions.
A cease-fire, if it took place, would be the first pause in the fighting since November 2023.
The war began when Hamas invaded Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and killed 1,200 Israelis and other civilians, most of them unarmed people massacred in their homes or at the Nova music festival. Hamas took another 250 people hostage.
More than 100 hostages were released during the November 2023 cease-fire, and a few others were released earlier or rescued in a June 8 raid. About 80 are believed to be still alive, with 43 confirmed dead.
As fighting continued in the Gaza Strip, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) recently deepened a move into the eastern part of Gaza City. Thousands of Palestinians fled as columns of tanks moved in from different directions.
The operation expanded the IDF’s engagement in an area it said it had seized control of months ago, yet Hamas resurgences have pushed back Israeli military gains.
