Mick Hartley

Has the war in Gaza just finished? Anshel Pfeffer at the JC:

Wars usually end with a formal act – a ceasefire being put into effect or one side surrendering and laying down its arms. But there are wars that you only realise ended long after the event. History may yet remember the early morning of 7 April, when the last forces of the IDF’s 98th Division crossed back into Israel, as the moment the war against Hamas in Gaza ended. Exactly six months after it began….

The full details of the tense phone call between Biden and Netanyahu last Thursday are still unknown. The White House readout of the call said simply that the president “made clear that US policy with respect to Gaza will be determined by our assessment of Israel’s immediate action.” But how did he make it clear?

What we know is that once the call was over, Netanyahu rushed to a cabinet meeting where he quickly passed two decisions – to open the Erez Crossing to supply convoys going into northern Gaza and to allow supplies to Gaza to arrive directly from Ashdod Port. These were two steps that Israel has resolutely refused to make since October 7, and all it took was a phone call from Biden to make them happen. Whatever the president said, it was the sternest warning Netanyahu has received in six months – one that motivated him to hold the cabinet vote before National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir arrived at the meeting.

On Monday, Ben-Gvir’s warning that if the IDF doesn’t carry out a wide-scale operation in Rafah, Netanyahu “would not have a mandate to continue serving as prime minister”, along with similar warnings passed on in a hastily convened meeting with Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, forced Netanyahu to put out his statement on a date being set for the Rafah operation.

Netanyahu now has two sets of red lines, one put down by Biden and the other by Ben-Gvir. He will continue trying to walk between them for as long as he can. Meanwhile, he will pretend that the war is still happening and that the Rafah operation is just around the corner. Perhaps there will be a much smaller and largely symbolic operation in Rafah. Or perhaps we will eventually find out that this was the week that the war ended.

We shall see. Either way it's clear that Netanyahu's days are numbered.