Why Netanyahu won’t let Israel stop fighting after killing Hamas’s Sinwar
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks at a memorial ceremony for the victims of the 1948 Altalena Affair,
20 Oct 2024
Beirut, Lebanon – Israeli forces killed Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar in combat on Wednesday in a surprise shootout in Rafah.
The news raised some hopes among Western commentators that the killing may be an opening for an end to the ongoing war in Gaza or even to the broader Israel-Palestine conflict.
However, analysts told Al Jazeera, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would seek other pretexts to keep his country at war for personal gain and to further an Israeli expansionist dream of expelling the Palestinians and maintaining an indefinite occupation of their lands.
Netanyahu’s fears
Netanyahu has long feared losing power due to the possibility that he could spend multiple years behind bars. In 2019, he was charged in three separate cases: fraud, bribery, and breach of trust. If convicted, he risks spending up to 10 years in prison.
According to the accusations, Netanyahu offered favours and gifts to media tycoons in exchange for positive press.
A year later, Netanyahu was elected prime minister for a fifth term. His far-right parliamentary coalition quickly proposed laws that would undermine the country’s judiciary by allowing the government to appoint judges, limit the court’s oversight and even override the court.
Meanwhile, International Criminal Court prosecutor Karim Khan has requested an arrest warrant for Netanyahu and his Defence Minister Yoav Gallant for atrocities they have overseen in Gaza.
“[Netanyahu] will look for another pretext, or for another person, to continually go after. That will only breed more insecurity, which is what he wants,” said Diana Buttu, an analyst on the Israel-Palestine conflict.
“He wants to make Israelis believe that they are under a state of siege or war … That’s his way of controlling them and staying in power,” she told Al Jazeera.
That Netanyahu seems to chase escalation was apparent on Saturday after a Hezbollah drone reportedly attacked his home in Caesarea.
However, Netanyahu said the attack was by “Iran’s agents”, a deflection that some analysts see him laying the groundwork for widening the war further to include Iran, well beyond the Gaza Strip and the Lebanese group.
‘Locked in a permanent conflict’
In October last year, Israel launched its war on Gaza, killing more than 42,000 people and uprooting nearly the entire population of 2.3 million. And the death of Sinwar – Israel’s “number one enemy” – is unlikely to stop it.
“I don’t believe the death of Sinwar changes Israel’s calculations in terms of Netanyahu’s desire to proceed with the destruction and depopulation of the Gaza Strip,” said Omar Rahman, visiting fellow on Israel-Palestine for the Middle East Council on Global Affairs think tank in Doha.
Israel’s war against the civilians of Gaza began in ostensible response to a Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, during which 1,139 people were killed in Israel and about 250 were taken captive.
Gaza had already been suffering since an Israel-imposed siege on it in 2007, with the standard of living deteriorating to the point where international observers and world leaders soon began to refer to it as “the world’s largest open-air prison”.
Israel had just ended its physical occupation of Gaza in 2005 – withdrawing its military presence and vacating the illegal settlements that Israeli settlers had moved into. But the move had little to do with conceding territory and eventually statehood to Palestinians.
Israel’s then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon simply believed that the Israeli settlers in Gaza were surrounded by far too many Palestinians, making them a burden on the security establishment. He preferred to pull out of Gaza and focus on settlement expansion in the West Bank.