The Israel Defense Forces (idf) recovered six bodies of Israeli hostages from a tunnel in the city of Rafah on September 1. These included the body of 23-year-old Hersh Goldberg-Polin, an abductee from the Supernova music festival made famous from a hostage video Hamas released earlier this year.

This may be only the beginning of the casualties. Hamas is holding roughly a hundred hostages in Gaza, and they could kill more as the idf closes in.

Hamas executed the six hostages “shortly before idf forces reached them,” according to the idf. Their captors apparently heard of the impending Israeli advance, shot them two or three days before the idf arrived, and fled the scene.

Israel’s Gaza invasion is practically complete. The idf has dissolved almost all of Hamas’s military units. Its wall-to-wall cities have been turned into rubble. The situation is similar to what Germany faced in 1945. Yet even as Hamas could gain slivers of assistance by freeing hostages as an olive branch, it kills them.

Hamas may have lost the war. But it can smell blood in another arena, one that could give it a victory so great, it would be worth losing Gaza.

Leading to “Peace”?

Even at this late stage, Israel and Hamas are negotiating a ceasefire and prisoner swap. An anonymous American official told Turkish state media on September 4 that Hamas and Israel have agreed to 90 percent of the terms of a ceasefire-hostage deal. The biggest sticking points are who will be swapped and Israeli control of the Philadelphi Corridor, the border between Gaza and Egypt.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has mandated that the idf not leave the Philadelphi Corridor. Egypt’s porous border with Gaza was the main way Hamas armed itself ahead of last year’s October 7 massacre. Netanyahu sees Israeli control of the border as essential to ensuring Hamas could never again attack Israel like it did in 2023.

“The Philadelphi Corridor is of cardinal importance both in bringing the hostages and ensuring that Hamas will be crushed and that Gaza will never again constitute a threat to us,” he said on September 2. “I want to make it clear: I am flexible where I can be flexible. I am not insistent where I can be flexible, and I am not flexible where I must be insistent. On this we must all be insistent, otherwise we will receive all of this disaster again.”

Hamas hasn’t changed its demands: removal of Israeli troops, including from the Philadelphi Corridor, letting the organization remain in Gaza, and letting its leader Yahya Sinwar live. In other words, it wants an Israeli surrender.

The deaths of the hostages have added scrutiny to Netanyahu’s handling of the war. Many think giving in to Hamas’s demands is worth saving the rest of the hostages. Many think that if only Netanyahu was pressured into a deal like this long ago, people like Goldberg-Polin would be still alive and home. United States President Joe Biden, when asked by media on September 2 if Netanyahu was doing enough to get a hostage deal, simply said, “No.”

Netanyahu is no stranger to Israel’s left organizing mass protests against him. Ever since he returned to office in 2022, there has been constant pressure from leftwing activists to back off his conservative agenda, most notably his judicial reform plans. Since October 7, these protests have been mostly muted.

They resurfaced again after news of the hostages’ deaths circulated. Protest organizers estimated hundreds of thousands took to the streets in Tel Aviv alone. Israel’s largest union called for a general strike that for a couple of hours shut down Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion Airport, one of Israel’s few international entry-exit points.

Many family members of the hostages understandably are among the most vocal in calling for a ceasefire deal. Others take Netanyahu’s view, prioritizing a strong war effort. Either way, Netanyahu’s strategy is still popular. A Jewish News Syndicate (jns) poll suggests 62 percent of Israelis support Netanyahu’s rejection of a ceasefire if it means an effective surrender to Hamas.

What People Really Want

The protest organizers are the same people who have attacked the prime minister for years. The safety of the hostages is likely not their main concern. It’s not like the Israeli government hasn’t negotiated. It accepted in principle two ceasefire plans the U.S. presented in May and August that Hamas rejected. The protest organizers want to cause problems for Netanyahu. After all, the sooner the war ends, the sooner investigations into Netanyahu’s responsibility for October 7 can start.

“[What] must be understood is that Netanyahu’s political opponents have essentially hijacked the demonstrations,” jns editor in chief Jonathan Tobin wrote. “Their goal is simple: ousting Netanyahu from office and reversing the outcome of the November 2022 Knesset elections. Their disingenuous complaints about the government’s since-abandoned plans for judicial reform, responsibility for the October 7 disaster or simply being too concerned about preventing Hamas from surviving and striking again to agree to a hostage deal at any price were all a pretext to their wanted result.”

Hamas knows abusing hostages provides fodder for Israeli opposition to go after Netanyahu. This helps their goal for a ceasefire. As far as Hamas is concerned, any ceasefire deal—which the U.S. and other international partners want to become permanent—would effectively keep Hamas in Gaza. It would legitimize them to a degree in the international community and could cause the Netanyahu government to collapse.

“Sinwar is persisting with the infernal strategy he has deployed ever since October 7: using the hostages’ plight as the supreme psychological weapon to force Israel to surrender,” Times of London columnist Melanie Phillips wrote. jns contributor Caroline Glick defined Sinwar’s strategy as: “To use international pressure and domestic political unrest to compel Israel to capitulate to his demands. If he and Hamas are able to survive, Hamas wins. Obviously, the hostages are a key means of accomplishing his goal.”

Even amidst Gaza’s devastation, Sinwar believes he can win or, at the very least, take Netanyahu down with him.

Why All the Hate for Netanyahu?

Netanyahu claimed in his speech the push to accept a ceasefire “and then continue business as usual” is really meant to implement a permanent ceasefire—with Israel gone from the Philadelphi Corridor and Gaza. “Whoever says we can go [out of the corridor] and it won’t be a problem, there’s quite a problem,” he said. “It is not easy to do such a thing. It is not a question of military tactics as it is a question of the great diplomatic pressure that the entire world will use on us. If we leave, we will not go back.”

The Trumpet has written extensively on the international pressure trying to remove Netanyahu from office. Many on the political left, especially in America, loathe the conservative direction Netanyahu has taken Israel and want him gone. But plenty of people within Israel share this sentiment. Outside actors, including Hamas, are taking advantage of this to add pressure against Netanyahu.

The various attacks against the Israeli prime minister may seem random and coincidental. They are not. There is a deliberate plot to oust Netanyahu orchestrated from a single nerve center. Our August print issue cover article “Who Is Behind the War on Netanyahu” explains how and why.