Yet, the jubilancy was short-lived as the Israeli people soon found out the truth about the operation and its consequences.

It is not that the majority of Israelis, who have leaned towards extremism following the 7 October attack by Hamas, were saddened or horrified by the brutal killing of 274 Palestinians in the course of the so-called rescue operation, mostly women and children like other casualties of the past eight months. The Israeli media, heavily censored by the military, might not even have mentioned the shocking death toll among Palestinians.  

But less than a day after the operation in which US and British intelligence officers participated by providing vital intelligence information, Hamas announced that three Israeli hostages were killed in the process, along with an Israeli special operations officer who was declared dead by the Israeli army. Thus, to free four Israelis, another four were killed, making any talk of major achievement and victory nothing but hollow propaganda.

The families of the Israeli hostages whose protests have been growing bigger by the day in recent weeks were also quick to note that Netanyahu rushes to celebrate any occasion that would provide him with a political boost, but is never available to stand by them after they were delivered the sad news of the death of their loved ones while in captivity as a result of Israel’s indiscriminate bombing all over Gaza. The images of grieving families certainly make for bad PR for the Israeli premier.

Moreover, the widely celebrated “achievement” of freeing four living hostages failed to prevent the gradual collapse of Netanyahu’s extremist government. With the resignation of the influential, so-called centrist Minister Benny Gantz and his colleague Gadi Eisenkot, both renowned generals and former chiefs of staff, from the limited war cabinet established after 7 October, Netanyahu can no longer claim he is at the front of a united domestic front.

In his news conference, Gantz spelled out the reality already known to rest of the world: Netanyahu has been intentionally prolonging the genocide war against Palestinians in Gaza and rejecting any ceasefire deals, not to protect Israel’s security or prevent another Hamas attack, but to serve his own personal political interests and prevent his ouster.

“I am aligned with Israel’s interest, not Netanyahu’s personal interest,” Gantz said. He added that Netanyahu’s talk of unity aimed at hiding a reality in which “fateful strategic decisions are met with hesitation and procrastination due to [narrow] political considerations.” According to Gantz, the priority for the Israeli premier is to keep his right-wing coalition intact and to appease his most extremist partners such as the ministers of national security and finance, Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezlael Smotrich, whose names have become a worldwide trademark for racism and blood thirst.

Shortly afterwards, the commander of the Israeli forces in Gaza also resigned, noting along with Gantz, their failure to prevent the 7 October attacks or to achieve the delusional total victory over Hamas that Netanyahu declared as his target.

Israel’s top army generals also admitted that carrying out any similar rescue operations to free hostages will be very difficult after the Nuseirat attack, simply because Hamas fighters would probably hold them in places more difficult to reach. This would make it nearly impossible to free any hostages alive, should the return of the remaining hostages be a priority for Netanyahu in the first place. The families of hostages have repeatedly complained they were being harshly attacked by extremist, right-wing supporters, including some of Netanyahu’s ministers, for holding demonstrations calling for the return of their loved ones.

Thus, in case freeing Israeli hostages was truly a priority for the current extremist government, instead of killing innocent Palestinians around the clock, the only viable option for Netanyahu is to agree to the ceasefire agreement proposed by US President Joe Biden two weeks ago. This is the message US Secretary of State Antony Blinken should deliver to Netanyahu, publicly and behind closed doors, during his current tour of the region, the eighth since Israel launched its aggression against Gaza.

Yet the US administration continues to pamper Israel, and instead of publicly recognising the long-known truths spelled out by Gantz on Sunday about Netanyahu and his intentions, they blame Hamas alone for failure to reach a ceasefire deal. While the top priority for Biden and his top officials is to release the remaining Israeli hostages alive, including a few dual American-Israeli nationals, the priority for the Palestinian people is not just to stop the war, but to make sure that Israel won’t resume its hysterical bombing soon after the hostages are released.

It is obvious that neither Netanyahu nor his extremist ministers will ever agree to stop the war, since resuming their genocide is the only way they can be sure they would stay in office. Thus, any US proposals or resolutions at the UN Security Council would fail to achieve their goals as long as Biden is more worried about his chances to win the upcoming presidential elections in November than he is about the lives of innocent Palestinians.

* A version of this article appears in print in the 13 June, 2024 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly