The willingness of Netanyahu to deal at the last moment under pressure from Trump – defying far-right members of his coalition including Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich – has not been lost on Israeli commentators.
“I ask myself where did all the obstacles go?” wrote Ben Caspit in the Hebrew daily Ma’ariv. “All the conditions? All the ridiculous spins that were thrown out by the leader and were echoed by his mouthpieces?
“And what about the Philadelphi corridor [on the border with Egypt]? All of the obstacles that emerged at decisive moments in the negotiations, all of the statements that were issued, including several that were issued during the Sabbath, about how Israel would never leave, never stop, never surrender and never give in?”
Update: They started killing in the West Bank, too. Airstrikes with drones and helicopters on a refugee camp, and then a ground operation.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ckg750yzdr8o
Like I say, it’s hard to predict the future, but if I had to guess at the specifics, I would say anywhere from two weeks to two months of no humanitarian aid allowed into Gaza, meaning people are still dying horribly at a pretty rapid pace, and then some pretext to resume the full military operation there. We’ll see whether I am profoundly wrong about that, I easily could be. My only pretty confident prediction is that the dying in Gaza will continue this year.
I didn’t have operations in the West Bank on the bingo card quite this soon, and I won’t make any specific predictions about what will happen there, but it’s not surprising to me that they’re being pretty overt about their rejection of peace. Like I said, any qualified observer could have seen it coming after watching the past year. In any context that didn’t give an opportunity to shit on Biden, I suspect that you’d be able to see it, too, and we wouldn’t be having any kind of disagreement about this.
Edit: Further update: Trump lifted the pause on 2,000 pound bombs.
https://denvergazette.com/news/nation-world/trump-to-lift-pause-on-2-000-pound-bomb-supply-to-israel-walla-news-reports/article_f8a0e8a8-f574-52eb-ad39-0cd579379ae4.html
Not that Biden had enacted any particularly effective level of stoppage of weapons shipments. But, Trump is on his first day going out of his way to undo even the pretty pitiful limits Biden had put on it. It’s a key priority for him. For contrast, here’s what Biden did on day one:
https://www.politico.com/interactives/2021/interactive_biden-first-day-executive-orders/