Emboldened by Trump, does Netanyahu really believe the best way to cling to power is endless war with Gaza?

Israel’s renewed military bombardment has not only put the lives of surviving hostages at risk, it also shows how emboldened the prime minister has been by his US friends, says Donald Macintyre – but he risks prioritising his political career over the peace process

Conscious of the need not to infuriate unnecessarily Benjamin Netanyahu – on whom the fate of the 59 Israelis still held in Gaza depends – the country’s Hostage and Missing Families’ Forum usually tries to weigh its words with care. But the forum’s reaction to his government’s unilateral resumption of the war in the early hours of Tuesday was unequivocal, accusing it of having “chosen to give up on the hostages”.

This reflects the double agony of the hostages’ families. They fear that the renewed bombardment of Gaza by Israeli forces will inevitably endanger the lives of the survivors still in Hamas’s hands, as well as, once again, those of Palestinians, whose latest death toll had already reached over 400 by mid-morning on Tuesday, on top of more than 48,000 in 15 months of war.

But, secondly, they have every reason to believe that the only way to release the remaining hostages is through an agreement with Hamas. Netanyahu’s repeated boasts that military pressure will somehow free them have been proved hollow by the realities since 7 October, when Hamas and other armed factions kidnapped 251 hostages, and killed another 1,200 Israelis.

The families’ frustration is all the greater because such an agreement actually exists, and because, on this occasion, it is Israel, rather than Hamas, that has reneged on it.

The unpleasant televised parades by Hamas that accompanied the release of hostages last month do not alter the fact that the first stage of that agreement, releasing Israeli hostages in return for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, went ahead as planned.

What Netanyahu didn’t do, and perhaps never intended to, was to stick to the agreed date of 1 March for a second phase of the deal negotiated – one that had been arranged with US backing in January, and which would have ensured the release of the remaining Hamas hostages, Israel’s withdrawal of its forces from the Gaza Strip, and an end to the war.

Instead, he attempted to force through an “extension” of phase one, which would see more hostages (and Palestinian prisoners) released, but during which he would not have to withdraw the remaining forces from Gaza. This he backed up with a draconian denial of aid and electricity to Gaza’s stricken and hungry population which UK foreign secretary David Lammy, to his credit, described bluntly on Monday as a breach of international law – even though No 10 was quick to row back from the accusation.

The ecstatic reaction to the resumption of war by Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben Gvir – two of Israel’s most extreme, ultra-nationalist politicians – partly helps to explain why Netanyahu has now acted as he has: he needs both of them to pass his all-important budget to retain his grip on power.

Anyone listening to the subtly calibrated defence of Israel’s actions by Michael Oren, the country’s former ambassador to the US, on Tuesday’s BBC Today programme could be forgiven for thinking he somehow represented an Israeli consensus. In fact, opposition extends far beyond the hostage families. A February poll for Israeli TV’s Channel 12 showed 70 per cent of Israelis backing the agreement’s second stage, which would mean an end to the war.

Nothing could better illustrate Netanyahu’s determination to maintain an increasingly autocratic hold on power despite public opposition (and his own criminal trial on three corruption charges, which he denies) than yet another decision likely to have seismic effects on Israeli politics. He announced on Sunday that he intends to fire Ronen Bar, the head of Israel’s intelligence agency Shin Bet. Bar’s misdemeanours, from Netanyahu’s point of view, are multiple, but above all, he supports the appointment of an independent commission of an enquiry into the failures that preceded 7 October – including those of Netanyahu himself.

Bar had authorised a potentially embarrassing investigation into allegations that Netanyahu’s aides had worked on the side of the Qatari government to improve its image in Israel. “Qatargate” is especially resonant because one of the accusations that an inquiry commission would examine is Netanyahu’s alleged role in ensuring that Qatar continued to supply cash to Gaza, which Shin Bet believes indirectly helped Hamas to strengthen its military forces.

Finally, Bar is almost certainly sympathetic to the already sacked defence minister Yoav Gallant’s view that a hostage deal ending the war could have been reached far earlier.

In all this – notably including the resumption of war in Gaza, about which the US was consulted in advance – Netanyahu has been empowered by what he believes, with good reason, is the support of Donald Trump.

Trump’s billionaire property developer envoy, Steven Witkoff, brokered the original deal back in January. But with Netanyahu resisting the move to stage two, Witkoff went along with the idea of extending stage one. Hamas’s rejection of it without guarantees that the previously agreed stage two would happen is part of what Netanyahu is now using as an excuse to reopen the war.

There is also a striking difference between how Trump has treated Israel and another supposed US ally, Ukraine. Just as he temporarily denied Ukraine arms and intelligence cooperation, reputedly in an attempt to force it into a deal with its Russian invaders, the US administration siphoned another $11bn in aid to Israel, including the delivery of 2,000lb bombs that Joe Biden had paused. It’s hardly surprising that when the UN General Assembly voted overwhelmingly to support Ukraine in February, Israel joined the US, Russia and North Korea in the small minority who voted against.

You have to assume that the Trump administration knows what sort of Israeli government it is supporting by seemingly giving it carte blanche to inflict more death and destruction on Gaza than it has already.

The decision to resume the onslaught was perhaps best summed up in the headline on an analysis by Amos Harel, Haaretz’s experienced and level-headed military commentator: “Israel's renewed Gaza offensive exposes Netanyahu's real goal: political survival through endless war.”