Israel says it is unleashing an “unprecedented attack”

In a career of many crises Binyamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, faces a defining moment. The path he chooses may alter Israel’s relationship with the Palestinians and America, its closest ally. One route involves reinvading Gaza to try to eradicate Hamas, which the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) are poised to do. That would cause more casualties, and further damage Mr Netanyahu’s relations with America and the Gulf states. The other path would involve a truce that could topple Mr Netanyahu’s government but repair Israel’s influence in the White House at a time when Mr Trump is reinventing American policy towards the Gulf, Syria and Iran. The implications of that shift could last decades.

The odds of the first path, reinvasion, are now dangerously high. On May 19th Mr Netanyahu said the IDF would be “taking control of all of Gaza”. His finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, a leader of one of the coalition’s far-right parties, went even further. “We are destroying what is still left of the strip, simply because everything there is one big city of terror,” he said.

The IDF has warned Gazans to leave Khan Younis, a key city, ahead of an “unprecedented attack”. Israel hopes a final surge will eradicate what remains of Hamas. On May 13th a strike may have killed Muhammad Sinwar, one of its last senior commanders. The humanitarian cost is likely to be staggering. Since the collapse of a ceasefire on March 18th, perhaps 5,000 Gazans have been killed, taking the total to over 50,000, including combatants. Hunger is widespread. In preparation for a ground attack the IDF has been conducting over 100 strikes a day.

The Trump administration appears to have granted Israel licence to act, but Mr Netanyahu himself appears not to have its support. Steve Witkoff, Mr Trump’s envoy, is said to have privately urged Mr Netanyahu to return to a deal. J.D. Vance, the American vice-president, was planning to go to Israel this week but has cancelled his visit, apparently because he did not want to appear to endorse Israel’s latest military expansion. Mr Trump and those close to him are refraining from openly criticising Israel’s government. The president has repeatedly said he would like to see the war end, for the hostages to be freed and for food to be let into Gaza. In public he has put the onus on Hamas. But the new distance between America and Israel may be widened still more if Israel reinvades Gaza.

Mr Netanyahu was blindsided by America’s decision to embark on talks with Iran on a nuclear deal. Likewise Mr Trump’s announcement that America had agreed to end its bombing campaign of the Houthis in Yemen, despite their continuing missile attacks on Israel, caught the prime minister unawares. Israel was conspicuously absent from the president’s itinerary during his Middle East tour. Saudi Arabia was meant to be the next Arab country to sign Mr Trump’s Abraham accords by normalising its ties with Israel, but Mr Trump has accepted that this will not happen until the war in Gaza is over. Mr Trump met Syria’s new president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, and announced that he was lifting American sanctions on Syria, a step Israel had argued against. For Israel, having a free rein in Gaza seems to have come with a striking loss of influence.

Is the other path, a new truce, still possible? “Our operation in Gaza is staged so at any moment we can pull back if there’s a ceasefire,” says an Israeli general. Diplomacy may not be dead. American and Qatari diplomats are pressing Israel’s and Hamas’s teams in Doha to reach a new deal. Hamas has freed an American-Israeli soldier. Israel has allowed in a trickle of supplies to be distributed by aid groups, despite its claims they let Hamas steal them.

The probable death of Mr Sinwar may also help bring a ceasefire. With another hardliner out of the way, Hamas’s more pragmatic political leaders, who are based outside Gaza, may have more leeway. Still, the main obstacles to peace remain. Israel will countenance only a temporary truce, during which more of the hostages would be freed and more aid allowed in. But Hamas has ruled out any deal unless it permanently ends the war and is balking at Israel’s demand that it disarm and send its surviving Gazan leaders into exile.

Pressure is increasing on both sides. A majority of members of the European Union want the chance to re-examine Israel’s free-trade agreement with Europe, its main trading partner. Britain has suspended talks on a new trade deal. A majority of Israelis favour ending the war. Yair Golan, the leader of the opposition Democrats party, warned Israel could become a pariah state: “a sane country does not wage war against civilians, does not kill babies as a pastime, and does not engage in mass population displacement.” And Hamas is under pressure, too, as its people starve. In polls, around half of Gazans say they would leave given the chances.

Perhaps there will be a last-minute compromise. Without it, the future looks bleak. Mr Netanyahu says he will end the war only once he has won “total victory”. The total devastation of Gaza and isolation for Israel look more likely. ■