With Trump Pressing for Peace, Netanyahu Adapts to New Political Reality

The Washington Post

14:58 JST, October 11, 2025

JERUSALEM – After Israel and Hamas agreed on an earlier ceasefire in January, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ended that truce after 42 days and resumed fighting in Gaza at the urging of his influential far-right coalition partners.

This time, however, he is under pressure from an even more powerful ally – President Donald Trump – to keep the peace.

The prime minister won his government’s approval early Friday for a ceasefire and hostage deal based on Trump’s peace plan. The agreement came into effect at midday, according to the Israeli military, which said it was pulling back “along the updated deployment lines in preparation for the ceasefire agreement and the return of hostages.” Gaza’s Hamas-run Interior Ministry said its security forces would deploy to areas Israeli troops are withdrawing from.

Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff said on social media that U.S. Central Command had confirmed the IDF’s withdrawal to the prearranged “yellow line” and said the 72-hour period for Hamas to release the hostages has begun. The Israeli military also said Friday that Palestinians may now return to the north of the enclave, with footage from Al Jazeera and other Arabic-language media showing thousands of people beginning the journey by foot.

As Netanyahu weighs his next steps, he faces a different political landscape from earlier in the year. In Trump, Netanyahu finds an American president who now appears far more invested in seeing peace achieved – and his image as a peacemaker burnished. In the far-right firebrands Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, Netanyahu sees a pair of cabinet ministers who wield diminished leverage.

Around the world, Israel faces mounting international isolation. And at home, an exhausted Israeli security establishment has voiced its strong reservations about continuing the Gaza military campaign into its third year.

As a result, Israeli political observers say, Netanyahu may be motivated to advance negotiations with Hamas even after the group returns all of the Israeli hostages held in Gaza, which is expected to happen Monday or Tuesday under the terms of the deal.

Netanyahu spent days signaling to the Israeli public that the country’s forces might resume combat after the hostage release if his conditions were not met, but on Thursday his foreign minister, Gideon Saar, told Fox News that Israel was “committed to Trump’s plan” and does not “have any intention to renew the war.”

Before Israel and Hamas reached an agreement this week, the United States had given verbal guarantees to Hamas that Israel would not resume the war after the militant group released the hostages, said two regional officials familiar with the mediation process. They spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the negotiations.

For Netanyahu, angering Smotrich and Ben Gvir – or even risking the collapse of his government if these coalition partners bolt – may be preferable to inviting Trump’s fury by disrupting the peace process, said Michael Oren, a former Israeli ambassador to Washington.

“If President Donald Trump says ‘don’t,’ then nobody dares to cross him,” Oren said. “It’s the return of Pax Americana.”

Nor is it certain that Ben Gvir and Smotrich would immediately quit the government and force early national elections if Netanyahu does not resume the war as they insist, given how much the right-wing coalition is lagging in opinion polls, Oren added.

Trump’s strong determination that the two warring sides accept a ceasefire also gave Netanyahu political cover to push the deal through his government, said a person familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.

“It put him in a stronger position vis-à-vis the different factions in the coalition,” the person said. “He basically said, ‘I have no choice. What do you want from me? Decide whether you want to continue or dissolve the coalition.’”

While Ben Gvir and Smotrich agitated for the war to continue in early 2025, they have so far issued only restrained warnings about agreeing to Trump’s deal. Ben Gvir said Thursday that he opposed the agreement, under which the Israeli hostages would be released in exchange for about 2,000 Palestinian prisoners, but that he would not leave the government unless Netanyahu failed to finish off “Hamas rule in Gaza.” This represented a milder version of his previous demands, which have included calling for Israeli conquest of the Gaza Strip. Smotrich said he would vote against the deal but did not threaten to bring down Netanyahu’s coalition.

Meanwhile, the Israeli military has been urging Netanyahu to accept a ceasefire, said Gen. Ran Kochav, a former air and missile defense commander and Israel Defense Forces spokesman. Kochav noted that the military “rushed to issue a statement at 4 a.m.” welcoming the deal between Israel and Hamas after it was announced by Trump on Wednesday evening in Washington.

“Trump forced a plan on both Netanyahu and Hamas that neither of them really wanted. … The only ones doing it willingly are the IDF,” Kochav said. “The army is tired, worn down, enlistment rates are falling, and it’s still active on other fronts. The chief of staff was very pleased with Trump’s directive to halt the fire while negotiations are underway.”

For his part, Trump said Thursday that he will travel to Egypt on Sunday to personally sign the ceasefire agreement, which will add further weight to the deal.

Mustafa Barghouti, the West Bank-based leader of the Palestinian National Initiative party, said Palestinian political factions consider it significant that Trump and other mediators from the region, such as Qatar, have guaranteed that Netanyahu will not restart the war.

“President Trump’s personal participation provides much more of a base than any time before for a continuation of the ceasefire; he will be the one officially announcing it, using his reputation,” said Barghouti, who was consulted during the ceasefire negotiations. “But we remain alert because of the games of Netanyahu. He is a manipulator.”

Negotiations over the next phases of Trump’s plan – which will address the disarmament of Hamas, an Israeli withdrawal from more of Gaza, questions over who will govern the enclave and a pathway to Palestinian statehood – will probably prove far more difficult.

Palestinian political groups have already begun discussing the possibility of creating a united governing body, potentially including an overhauled version of Hamas. That outcome would be hard for Smotrich and Ben Gvir to accept, as well as for other Israeli leaders and Netanyahu himself.

If Netanyahu’s coalition partners become so displeased with the course of negotiations that they quit the government, he may be forced to call early elections, before the scheduled date of October 2026.

Netanyahu may also see an advantage to early elections himself. Political observers say the prime minister will probably be watching opinion polls over the coming days to see how much of a bump he gains from bringing the hostages home. Although Netanyahu’s recent foreign policy achievements, including his strikes on Iran in June, have failed to give him a lasting boost in the polls, the hostage release may give him a fillip in a reelection bid, analysts say.

Dan Diker, president of the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs, said there was a strong possibility that Netanyahu would call early elections and tout his achievement in securing the hostage release, along with his successful military campaigns against Iran and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.

“The calculation is that this is a high point and a relief for the Israeli public,” Diker said. “His strategy all along was to use maximum pressure to bring Hamas to heel to make a deal, and that, along with cooperation with the United States, brought this deal to fruition.”