For Israel’s Netanyahu, the war with Iran is unfinished business

By Isabel Kershner

When Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu finally spoke to the Israeli public Wednesday night, some 18 hours after a two-week ceasefire with Iran had come into force, his televised address was less about victory than unfinished business.

The “double existential threat” of Iran’s ballistic missiles and its nuclear program has been “distanced,” he said, but not eliminated.

“We still have goals to complete,” Netanyahu said, “and we will achieve them either by agreement or by the resumption of fighting.”

He was speaking at the end of the deadliest day in Lebanon since fighting resumed last month between Israel and Hezbollah, the Iran-backed armed group across Israel’s northern border.

On Thursday, 40 days after Israel and the United States launched their military offensive against Iran, life in Israel was getting back to normal. In most of the country, children returned to school after a night without alerts of incoming Iranian missiles, and the main airport resumed full operations.

For many Israelis, however, the path ahead was uncertain. In local news media, some were already wondering if they had spent the month in bomb shelters “for nothing.”

The country has lurched from one conflict to another for 2 1/2 years, ever since the Hamas-led attack on Israel in October 2023, which ignited the war in the Gaza Strip. While Netanyahu and many other Israelis have praised the military’s accomplishments in downgrading their enemies’ capabilities, so far there have been no total victories or lasting diplomatic resolutions.

At the same time, Netanyahu’s domestic political timetable is pressing, with elections due before the end of October.

“914 days of war, over 2000 killed, tens of thousands wounded, 4 open fronts and — 0 decisive wins!” Avigdor Liberman, the leader of a right-wing Israeli opposition party, sniped on social media, tallying up the account on Israel’s side.

The United States is now shifting its attention from the battlefield to negotiations with Iran. Israeli officials will not be in the room, adding to the sense of unease among the Israeli public. Israel and Pakistan, the mediating country that is hosting the talks, have no formal diplomatic relations.

In the hours after President Donald Trump announced the temporary ceasefire, the Israeli military bombarded Beirut and other areas and said it struck more than 100 Hezbollah targets within 10 minutes. More than 200 people were killed and more than 1,000 others were wounded in the strikes, according to Lebanese authorities.

The timing may have been intended to demonstrate that Israel did not count Lebanon as part of the ceasefire understanding, or to get in a final salvo while it was still possible.

Israel’s offensive against Hezbollah is continuing for now, but analysts said U.S. support for Israel on that front could soon run out, with Iran warning that Israel’s actions were undermining the ceasefire.

“The ceasefire announcements themselves were very vague and contradictory,” said Yonatan Touval, an Israeli foreign policy analyst at Mitvim, an independent research group based in Tel Aviv, Israel. “We are already seeing conflicting interpretations, with the main ones being over Lebanon.”

In the talks this weekend, Vice President JD Vance is expected to lead the US delegation, and experts said that the negotiations would probably focus first on firming up the terms of the ceasefire, rather than more far-reaching, comprehensive agreements.

Critics of Netanyahu say that the US administration may now be warier of the Israeli prime minister, given the widespread perception that he played a large role in persuading Trump to go to war. “With respect to Netanyahu’s leverage in the negotiations,” Touval said, “at this point, he has none.”

Israel and the United States, while closely aligned, have different emphases when it comes to their priorities, according to Michael Herzog, who served as Israeli ambassador to Washington from 2021 to early 2025 and is now a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

Israel is primarily concerned about the fate of Iran’s stockpile of some 900 pounds of highly enriched uranium, which was buried beneath a nuclear facility near the city of Isfahan during strikes last June. The United States is more concerned about ensuring freedom of passage through the Strait of Hormuz, which Iran has effectively blockaded for several weeks, causing a global energy crisis.

“There has been a very close dialogue between Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Trump leading up to and during the war, so Netanyahu could try to influence the U.S. position, and I assume he will try to do that,” Herzog said.

Then there’s the question of the overthrow of the government in Iran. Experts say there is no way of predicting if, or when, the power structure of the Islamic Republic may fall. But while Israel has put more emphasis on that objective, Herzog said, Trump may now be more focused on “behavior change than regime change.”

“Assuming there is no regime change in Iran in the foreseeable future,” Herzog added, “we have to assume Iran will try to rebuild its capabilities, meaning that we will have to go back to war there in a few years’ time.”

For now, Trump appears to have Netanyahu in a bear hug: Their relationship plays well with Netanyahu’s electorate in Israel, but Trump is notoriously unpredictable.

If the United States eventually reaches a deal with Iran that Israel considers a bad one, it would be hard to imagine Netanyahu openly coming out against it, as he publicly denounced the nuclear deal during President Barack Obama’s term in 2015.

One measure of the relationship between Netanyahu and Trump may come around the time that the two-week truce is set to expire, when Israel celebrates its Independence Day on April 22. Traditionally, the country presents its most prestigious award, the Israel Prize, to laureates at a ceremony that day in Jerusalem.

Trump has been awarded one of the Israel Prizes this year for his “unique contribution to the Jewish people.” It remains to be seen if he will show up in person to receive the honor.