With talks stalled, Israel puts war back on the table

Jerusalem: For weeks, Israel and Hamas had been locked in fruitless negotiations to extend the fragile ceasefire in the Gaza Strip and exchange more Israeli hostages for Palestinian prisoners.

The talks stalled because Hamas refused to release significant numbers of hostages until Israel promised to permanently end the war -- a move that Israel would not make unless Hamas agreed to give up power.

Now Israel appears to have returned to war in an attempt to break that deadlock.

Israel's heavy overnight attacks on Gaza stopped short of an immediate ground invasion, but they were already a harsh reminder to Hamas of the brutal destruction that the group and Gaza's civilian population face if it doesn't compromise over a ceasefire extension.

The strikes killed hundreds, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants, in one of the highest nightly tolls in months; Hamas officials said the dead included four of the most senior civilian administrators and police chiefs in the territory. By morning, Israel's military had ordered residents in two Palestinian border villages to flee their homes, hinting at the possibility of an Israeli invasion there in the coming days.

By focusing on missile strikes instead of immediately beginning such a ground operation, Israel is seeking "to push Hamas to show more flexibility," said Michael Milstein, an Israeli analyst of Palestinian affairs and a former senior officer in Israeli military intelligence. "The big question is how Hamas will respond," Milstein said.

"Personally, I don't think it's likely Hamas will be ready to give up their red lines," Milstein added. "I'm quite concerned that within a few days, we will find ourselves in a limited war of attrition: ongoing airstrikes but no readiness from Hamas to give up."

Nine hours after the bombardment began, Hamas still had not fired back. It was not clear whether that was because its military capabilities were too degraded during the earlier phases of the war or because it sought to avoid a stronger response from Israel.

But it showed no public signs of backing down in the negotiations. In a statement, Hamas harshly criticized the strikes, saying that Israel had condemned the remaining hostages in Gaza to an "unknown fate" and calling for it to be held "fully responsible for violating and overturning the agreement."

In Israel, the renewal of the war drew celebration and horror.

To the relatives of the roughly 60 hostages still held in Gaza, the renewed fighting raised the possibility that the remaining captives might never return. "The Israeli government has chosen to abandon the hostages," the Hostages and Missing Families Forum, a group that campaigns for hostages, said in a social media post.

But the decision was praised by right-wing lawmakers who have long pushed for a return to war in order to ensure Hamas' destruction. Itamar Ben-Gvir, a far-right lawmaker who quit the government in January in protest of the ceasefire deal, said in a social media post that it is "the right, moral, ethical and most justified step." He added, "We must not accept the existence of the Hamas organization and it must be destroyed."

Critics of the government said that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made the move for political reasons, both to secure Ben-Gvir's support during tight upcoming votes in parliament over a new national budget, and to distract from the government's divisive plan to fire Ronen Bar, the head of Israel's domestic intelligence agency, the Shin Bet.

"Netanyahu is using the lives of our citizens and soldiers because he trembles in fear of us -- from the public protest against the dismissal of the head of the Shin Bet," wrote Yair Golan, an opposition leader, in a social media post. The Cabinet was expected to vote Tuesday about Bar's future, a move that had prompted calls for mass protests.

Asked to respond the opposition's claims, Netanyahu's office declined to comment.

But in its official statement announcing the resumption of heavy military action, the prime minister's office framed the operation as an effort to save the hostages. It blamed the breakdown of talks on Hamas and said the operation was an attempt to secure "the release of all of our hostages," avoiding explicit reference to Hamas' defeat.