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Protesters in Israel have accused Benjamin Netanyahu of ordering the airstrikes that shattered the ceasefire in Gaza on Tuesday to provide “cover” for a campaign to dismantle Israel’s democratic system and to maintain his own grip on power.
Political tensions in Israel surged after the Israeli prime minister announced on Sunday that he would seek to fire the head of the Shin Bet internal security service, an unprecedented move that legal experts said may be unlawful.
“The reality is that this attack [in Gaza] is being used as a tool for political interests. The way [they] operate is to create this external threat and accuse those who raise their voices of being anti-democratic,” said Ora Peled Nakash, a former senior officer in Israel’s navy and an organiser of the protests.
Groups representing Israeli hostages currently or formerly held by Hamas in Gaza are also planning demonstrations this week, and issued statements calling for an immediate ceasefire deal.
Ayelet Svatitzky, whose brother Nadav Popplewell was killed in captivity in Gaza, said hostages still held by Hamas could be saved.
“They can still be brought home. And those who did not survive deserve to be returned and buried with dignity … We must return to the ceasefire and negotiations, and secure their release. A deal is the only way to bring them all back. Please, do not let other families suffer the same fate as mine,” Svatitzky said.
The new wave of attacks in Gaza was launched amid acute political tensions in Israel.
Netanyahu needs support from rightwing allies to win crucial votes in Israel’s parliament in coming days and weeks, or risk losing power. These allies have fiercely opposed a permanent end to hostilities in Gaza. The far right former national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who resigned in protest at the ceasefire agreed with Hamas by Netanyahu in January, rejoined the government on Tuesday.
Netanyahu is also on trial for corruption and, if found guilty, could face prison. Also on Tuesday, a court approved Netanyahu’s request not to appear at a hearing “due to the renewal of the war”, Israeli media reported.
The protests this week were planned when Netanyahu announced a move to oust Ronen Bar, the head of the Shin Bet since 2021, after an increasingly acrimonious dispute between the men over responsibility for the failures that allowed the surprise Hamas attack on 7 October 2023 that triggered the war in Gaza.
Shin Bet recently issued a report accepting responsibility for its failures around the attack but also criticised Netanyahu, saying government policies were among its causes. The agency is currently investigating Netanyahu’s aides for potential national security offences, including leaking classified documents to foreign media and allegedly accepting payments from Qatar, which financially supported Hamas in Gaza for several years.
Netanyahu has not accepted responsibility for any failures around the 2023 attack, which killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and led to 251 being abducted, though he was prime minister at the time and has been in power for a total of 17 years. More than 48,900, mostly civilians, have died in Israel’s ensuing military offensive.
Fifty-nine hostages are still in Gaza, of whom more than half are thought to be dead. Successive polls have shown Israelis overwhelmingly in favour of a ceasefire in Gaza to bring back the hostages still there, though support for a war until “total victory” over Hamas remains strong. Some relatives of hostages have backed the new strikes in Gaza.
“The past weeks have proven … Hamas will never return all the hostages willingly. Only massive military pressure, a complete blockade including cutting off electricity and water, and occupation of territories that will lead to Hamas’s collapse, will cause them to beg for a ceasefire and a deal that will return all the hostages together, in one stage,” the Tikva Forum of Hostages’ Families said in a statement.
