Pressure is mounting on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as the war in Gaza brings high costs and few operational successes.
Monday marked the deadliest day in the war for Israeli forces, with a total of 24 soldiers killed in southern Gaza. The Israel Defense Forces said all but three of them died in a building collapse after a rocket-propelled grenade fired by militants caused an explosion. Netanyahu called Monday “one of the most difficult days since the outbreak of the war.”
He’s also facing louder demands to reach a hostage deal with Hamas, the Palestinian militant group that attacked Israel on October 7, launching this phase of the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict. During their attack, Hamas and allied operatives captured more than 200 people and have since released 110 of them as part of temporary ceasefire deals.
Family members of the estimated 107 remaining hostages and their supporters broke into the Israeli Parliament on Monday to call for urgent action, since they worry time might be running out: Some hostages are already confirmed to have died in captivity, and others have been accidentally killed by the IDF in Gaza. Israeli officials reportedly extended an offer of a two-month ceasefire to Hamas in exchange for the phased release of all the hostages — an offer Hamas has reportedly rejected. Hamas wants the war to end entirely.
The US and its regional partners are also looking to facilitate an end to the war as the death toll among Palestinians in Gaza climbs beyond 25,000. The US reportedly floated a Saudi-Israeli normalization agreement in exchange for a Palestinian state, a proposal that Netanyahu rejected. Brett McGurk, a senior Biden administration official, is visiting Egypt and Qatar this week with the aim of mediating a hostage deal as a key step toward ending the war.
But none of these developments necessarily mean Netanyahu is close to ending the war. The Israeli death toll may be mounting, and the hostages may…
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