As Israeli military casualties mount in Gaza, Benjamin Netanyahu finds himself on the horns of a dilemma. The Israeli prime minister’s popularity has plummeted and polls suggest that in an immediate election his rightwing Likud party would lose half its seats to a resurgent centrist opposition.
Voters have not forgotten the glaring failures that allowed Hamas to attack southern Israel from Gaza on 7 October, killing 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting about 240. But the lack of tangible results from the Israeli offensive in Gaza that was supposed to bring “total victory” over Hamas is now important too.
Military casualties have risen to 221 and there has been no strategic breakthrough. Hamas has been seriously degraded but its senior leadership remains intact, and rockets were fired into Israel from Gaza again last week.
Politics, frozen in Israel in the aftermath of the October attacks, are warming up again. Local media talk of “resurgent opposition” to Netanyahu. Seasoned observers warn against exaggerating any thaw, pointing to the lack of any mass mobilisation and how most Israelis are still absorbed in their personal grief, or worries about close relatives in uniform.
But there are signs of change. Relatives of hostages still in Gaza are growing more vocal. In recent days they blocked a motorway and disrupted a committee hearing in parliament.
Last week Gadi Eisenkot, a former chief of army staff and member of the small war cabinet formed by Netanyahu after the October attack, accused the prime minister of misleading the public into believing in a swift victory in Gaza. The criticism resonated, not least because Eisenkot’s son, a soldier, had been killed there in December.
Prof Gideon Rahat, of Jerusalem’s Hebrew University, said: “In the long term, casualties become significant because people start asking what return they are getting for such a high price. The politicians announced that victories would come too quickly and that is problematic.”
Netanyahu could gain a boost in the polls – albeit potentially a short-term one – if he agreed a deal with Hamas that freed the hostages, analysts suggest. But even agreeing a short pause to the offensive in Gaza could lose Netanyahu the support of the far-right politicians who are important to his coalition government. This would not end his rule, but would seriously undermine it.
There are multiple scenarios for what plays out over coming months. Many lead to the 74-year-old veteran leaving office.
Some analysts think early elections are likely. Others say no politician would risk a wartime poll but admit the parliamentary maths of a successful no-confidence vote does not currently add up. Netanyahu’s opposition is hopelessly divided too.
“Bibi”, as he is known, has been in power for longer than Israel’s founding father David Ben-Gurion was, and faces potential imprisonment on corruption charges. He has been in tough situations before, and survived. Even if elections were called tomorrow, it could take six months before a new government formed.
“[Netanyahu’s ouster] is not inevitable and definitely not immediate. He is in a different league from anyone else in the current political scene and he thrives on pressure,” said one political insider.
Ronny Douek, a businessman and social entrepreneur, said Israelis needed to decide if they wanted the same government to take them to “the next stage”.
“If you are running a huge hi-tech company and your company shows losses, you probably want the board to change the management. The leadership fell asleep and we are paying a huge price,” said Douek, who set up the Yeladenu resilience initiative to arrange counselling and other services for thousands of Israeli children displaced by the conflict.
Israeli public opinion is fragmented, however. Protesters in recent days, including demobilised veterans of the fighting in Gaza, are calling for firmer commitment to the offensive, which has killed 25,000 Palestinians in the territory, mostly women and children. Hostages’ families have differing views too.
“Netanyahu’s decision is to not make a decision and to drag things out in the hope something will turn up,” said Mairav Zonszein, an Israel analyst at the International Crisis Group. “There is still a consensus that the war is justified but increasingly people want someone else at the wheel and think that Netanyahu has to go, not at some unclear later date but now.”