The resumption of Israeli attacks on Gaza reflects the confluence of several trends: Israeli politics, Hamas’s durability, the inability of either Israel or Hamas to advance an end game to the conflict, and the implicit support of the Trump administration for Israeli action.
In the near term, the return of fighting helps secure Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu’s ruling coalition. Both Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and former Israeli Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir had expressed grave concerns about Israeli troops leaving Gaza before Hamas had been destroyed. In January, as Israeli negotiators circled around a ceasefire agreement that freed dozens of Israeli hostages, Ben-Gvir quit the government in protest, and Smotrich threatened to follow unless Netanyahu committed to return to fighting if Hamas were not overthrown, established Israel’s permanent territorial control over Gaza, and took steps to encourage Gazans’ emigration. The return to war secured Smotrich’s continued participation in government, and it marked the return of Ben-Gvir and his Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Strength) party to the ruling coalition.
Netanyahu is in an especially precarious position, because his government needs to pass a budget by March 31, or the Knesset would be dissolved and new elections called. Netanyahu has a difficult political task ahead, keeping a lid on the national budget while retaining religious parties that are seeking to sustain their large subsidies and navigating a growing controversy over whether ultra-Orthodox Jews should serve in the military. In addition, a growing controversy is brewing in Israel over Netanyahu’s efforts to dismiss Ronen Bar, the head of the Shin Bet domestic security service, who was investigating three of Netanyahu’s advisors for allegedly receiving Qatari payments during the war in Gaza. Netanyahu is also seeking to remove Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara, who not only lodged a legal objection to the dismissal of the Shin Bet head but who is also prosecuting Netanyahu in three corruption cases. The return of warfare creates a national security emergency that quells right-wing objections to Netanyahu’s actions and brings needed unity through a difficult political period.
The return to war is surely also a response to Hamas’s shows of strength and resilience in recent weeks, as Hamas treated hostage releases as propaganda opportunities replete with armed warriors, new banners, speeches, and slickly edited videos. The poor condition of some of the Israeli hostages, combined with Hamas’s ability to show its power amidst the rubble of Gaza, was jarring to many Israelis. After 18 months of warfare, Israelis reasonably concluded that Hamas remains the dominant power in the Gaza Strip.
Hamas’s durability—demonstrated by banners at hostage releases that proclaimed “We are the day after”—highlights that neither Hamas nor Israel has been able to put forward an end game to the conflict that the other side finds remotely acceptable. Netanyahu remains tied to maximalist goals, including the complete destruction of Hamas. He has been notably reluctant to allow alternative governing bodies, such as those tied to the Palestinian Authority, to emerge there, and he has been skeptical of efforts to enlist a technocratic Palestinian government that is not tied to any political faction. Hamas, meanwhile, is insisting on remaining in power in Gaza, and it remains unclear how much influence Hamas’s negotiators outside Gaza have with Hamas leaders inside the territory. The second phase of the hostage negotiations was meant to engage with those issues, alongside the freeing of the remainder of the Israeli hostages that Hamas holds and an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza.
Underlying this return to violence Israeli confidence that the Trump administration is sympathetic to their return to battle. While the Biden administration proved unable to shape Israeli actions as much as it would have liked, the Israeli government was still mindful of how its actions affected the bilateral relationship.
Netanyahu is confident that, in this case, he and Trump are aligned. Trump’s negotiator, Steve Witkoff, was directly engaged in the Hamas-Israel talks last week, and he seemed to reach the conclusion that Hamas remained an obstacle to U.S. peacemaking, notwithstanding an agreement to return one dual-national hostage and the bodies of four more. Witkoff said in a statement, “Unfortunately, Hamas has chosen to respond by publicly claiming flexibility, while privately making demands that are entirely impractical without a permanent ceasefire.” Combined with the stepped-up U.S. attacks on the Houthis in Yemen, and the stark warnings to Iran, Netanyahu has concluded that Trump is fundamentally sympathetic to his belief that Israel’s enemies need to be fought and defeated.
Where this goes in the coming months is less clear. As Netanyahu thinks through his immediate steps, a return to warfare in Gaza serves a variety of near-term needs. In the longer term, though, it could drag Israel into a grueling reoccupation of Gaza, and it could also lead to a catastrophic deterioration of humanitarian conditions there.
More importantly, the return to violence highlights the fact that neither Israel nor Hamas now has a pathway toward a sustainable long-term outcome in Gaza or even a vision toward one.
Jon B. Alterman is a senior vice president, holds the Zbigniew Brzezinski Chair in Global Security and Geostrategy, and is director of the Middle East Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C.
