As ceasefire inches closer, Israeli ministers are already making plans to break it

The ceasefire agreement announced Wednesday in Doha, Qatar, between Israel and Hamas, due to enter into effect on Sunday, is on the lips of every major news agency. 

But soon after celebrations erupted in Gaza, major confusion seems to have set in, following Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s delaying of the cabinet and parliament plenum vote. The vote, initially scheduled to take place on Thursday, was paused by Netanyahu, who  claimed Hamas was attempting to alter terms at the last moment – an allegation Hamas vehemently denied. Finally, early Friday morning, Netanyahu confirmed that a deal was reached, and the security cabinet passed a vote around 3pm local Israeli time. The deal will now go on to the full Israeli cabinet for a vote. At the time of publicaiton, the cabinet had began its meeting as of Friday night local time.

Despite reports that the cabinet is expected to ratify the deal, the drama in the Israeli political scene is not over. Far-right Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir is still threatening to quit the government if the agreement is passed, urging other ministers to vote against it, saying “everyone knows that these terrorists will try to harm again, try to kill again.”

Ben-Gvir has openly called on far-right minister Bezalel Smotrich to do the same. Smotrich is Finance Minister and de-facto “governor” of the occupied West-Bank through a special ministerial post. Ben-Gvir’s call on Smotrich to resign if the deal is passed indicates that Smotrich may be in a softer position, possibly due to incentives surrounding more resources for the accelerated colonization and annexation of the West Bank. As per Israeli media reports, Ben-Gvir was reportedly threatened that there will be no “extras” for him if he doesn’t play ball. Although Smotrich called the deal a “disaster”, it seems that he will let it pass. 

Netanyahu’s concern is naturally to survive politically, and he needs to do so also through this hurdle. It is important to note, that after having gotten Gideon Sa’ar into the government with his faction New Hope of 4 seats in late September (he has received the prestigious Foreign Minister post), Netanyahu has amassed a majority of 68 seats, well over the 61 (out of 120) needed for a majority rule. Ben-Gvir’s Jewish Power party, although having gotten into government in a technical bloc under Religious Zionism (14 seats), has only 6 seats in itself. Thus, Ben-Gvir exiting on his own with his Jewish Power faction would not break the government – and Netanyahu has no doubt made this calculation and shored up that it holds in these past two days. These calculations are crucial for him, and this is probably the main reason for the delay. 

Even if the deal passes, will Israel follow through?

But what does the deal really propose as a prospect? This seems to be a simple matter, as it is written in terms of three phases, with gradual release of captives(initial stage 33 Israelis and about 1,000 Palestinians), with an incremental release that also entails gradual and partial withdrawal of the Israeli army, until an eventual “end to the war” after phase three. 

And yet, the reading of the deal seems to vary greatly in Israel. It varies so greatly, that Amir Tibon in Haaretz opined that “Netanyahu just agreed to a hostage deal with Hamas… But it’s not the deal he’s selling his supporters”. Tibon cites Netanyahu’s chief of staff, Yossi Fuchs, who wrote on Wednesday that the deal “includes the option to resume the fighting at the end of phase 1 if the negotiations over phase 2 don’t develop in a manner that promises the fulfillment of the war’s goals: military and civil annihilation of Hamas and a release of all hostages.”

“Read these lines again”, Tibon writes “and ask yourself: how can phase two of the deal – during which Israel is supposed to completely withdraw from Gaza in return for the release of all remaining hostages – lead to the ‘military annihilation’ of Hamas? Obviously, it can’t, and Netanyahu’s top aide is basically saying that if this is the result, the war will be renewed”.

Tibon also cites Amit Segal, “Netanyahu’s mouthpiece on Channel 12, [who] wrote a long post explaining that phase 1 of the deal is necessary to provide President-elect Donald Trump with an achievement ahead of his return to the Oval Office, but that Trump doesn’t truly care about ending the war and will not object to Israel walking away from phase 2”.

In other words, not a literal “other document” as it were, but more an under-the-table deal that says that only phase 1 of the deal is to be implemented, and that Israel returns to the active genocide in Gaza. 

According to reports from Israeli media, Smotrich threatened that his party would leave the government if it did not “receive assurances in advance” that the Israeli army would return to its military operations in Gaza after the first phase of the deal. 

On the U.S. side of things, Jeremy Scahill of Drop Site News has pointed to an interview with Trump’s National Security Advisor Mike Waltz where Waltz says that while Hamas “would want to believe” that Israel’s “work in Gaza is done for the foreseeable future”, the reality is that “Hamas has to be destroyed”. 

Hamas has of course not been destroyed. So the picture that is forming here is quite clear, and not very secret at all – there is intent both in Israel and in the U.S. to let Israel ditch the deal after its initial phase 1. 

The interest in realizing phase 1 is clear – the release of captives. And here, Trump’s “America first” motto does play a significant part, for there are seven American captives in Gaza, four of whom are reportedly killed. Two of the three living Americans would be among those released in the first phase, while one, who is a soldier, is set to be released in phase 2 (which would also include return of bodies). 

One could rightfully ask, why the first phase would be sufficient for the coming Trump administration to allow Israel to violate the rest of the deal? Here the answer would be that they would have two of the three the living captives back, and perhaps care less about the one alive remaining and the bodies still there. 

Hannibal logic

As to Israel – why would they be willing to see only phase 1 realized, and risk the lives of over a dozen soldiers still presumed alive in a return to bombings that could risk their lives? The answer here might well lie in what is known as the Hannibal Directive. 

Israel implemented the directive on October 7 2023 – it allows for a massive, indiscriminate bombing of a target which is assumed to also contain one’s own , risking their life in order to eliminate the risk of having to negotiate a captive-exchange. Before October 7, the directive was reserved for military personnel. But on that day, it was implemented against Israeli civilians too. The subsequent genocide of Gaza included the logic of risking one’s own through indiscriminate bombings, as well as a loose-trigger policy, which resulted in the deaths of perhaps around 50 captives. 

Israeli society has become used to this heightened Hannibal-mindset, where the destruction of the enemy – in this case the Palestinian people (often euphemized as Hamas), is more important than the lives of the captives – even the civilians. For many, the sacrificing of their own, if they are civilians, is a terrible thing, and they will push against it, which is why there have been demonstrations in Israel for the “release of the kidnapped” as they say, but these have not urged a stop to the genocide in general. While Israelis conflate soldiers and civilians under that one notion of “kidnapped”, still, there appears to be a greater societal tolerance for the sacrificing of soldiers than of civilians. This is why, after phase 1 of the deal is implemented, there could be a considerably greater societal permission in Israel to break the ceasefire and return to the onslaught in Gaza. And there is much to indicate that the Trump administration won’t stop that from happening. 

We are thus entering very dangerous times, and they will become ever more dangerous as the first phase of the ceasefire deal is implemented.