In almost two months of war, the results are meager. Less than half of the hostages have returned and Hamas, despite bombings of unprecedented scale – between October 7 and November 20, 27,000 munitions fell on the enclave, according to Israeli media – holds Gaza so well that the truce lasted seven days without any significant break. Before the Palestinian movement, anticipating a failure of negotiations aimed at obtaining a renewal of the “humanitarian pause”, decides, Friday 1er December morning, to send its rockets into Israeli territory, thus showing that it retains the initiative. With 75 soldiers dead on the Israeli side and more than 15,000 on the Palestinian side, the vast majority civilians, this confrontation is already the longest and deadliest in the series of wars between the two camps, which began in 2008. If the one of the objectives of this war is to ” destroy ” the Islamist movement, the path will still be difficult.
Meanwhile, Benjamin Netanyahu consolidates his record as the longest-lasting prime minister in Israeli history. Despite its unpopularity, highlighted by the gigantic demonstrations against the reform of the Supreme Court, and despite its responsibility in the security fiasco of October 7, the date of the initial Hamas attack, which caused 1,200 deaths in Israel, nothing does not guarantee that he will eventually resign. “He can absolutely withstand public pressure. It has held up until now, despite a lawsuit, civil mobilization and unprecedented general strikes. The only thing that can bring him down is losing his majority in the Knesset or a rebellion in Likud.”, estimates political analyst Dahlia Scheindlin. Israeli opinion, at the end of the war, “will move to the right, but not to the far right”she adds.
The Prime Minister is carving out political space for himself while nibbling on both sides. His radical allies do not pose a threat to him, according to Ksenia Svetlova, a former Knesset member and member of the American think tank Atlantic Council: “Netanyahu is fighting for his survival. He lets the far right say that we must reconquer Gaza, rebuild colonies there. To counter them, he says that he is the only one who can prevent the creation of a Palestinian state. And on the other hand, he sells himself as “Mr. Security”. » This, to compete with the former chief of staff Benny Gantz, a figure as hieratic as he is mute, with whom Benjamin Netanyahu cohabits within the framework of a government of national unity responsible for the conduct of the war.
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