Israeli military leadership urges ceasefire in Gaza

Amid a deepening rift with Benjamin Netanyahu, the IDF believes a ceasefire is the best way to free the hostages, and could make it easier to head off a wider war with Hezbollah.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is refusing to contemplate a ceasefire unless Hamas is defeated. Picture: AFP.

Israel’s military leadership reportedly wants a ceasefire in Gaza, even if it means leaving Hamas in charge, in a sign of the deepening rift between the Israeli Defence Forces and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The IDF believes a ceasefire is the best way to free the hostages still held by Hamas, and could make it easier to head off a wider war with Hezbollah, the New York Times reports.

Mr Netanyahu immediately hit back, insisting: “It won’t happen.”

In a video statement posted on X, Mr Netanyaju said: “I don’t know who those unnamed parties are, but I’m here to make it unequivocally clear: it won’t happen.

“We will end the war only after we have achieved all of its goals, including the elimination of Hamas and the release of all our hostages.”

The IDF has changed its stance over Gaza in part because of the difficulties of defeating Hamas, which continually regroups in strongholds from where the military has cleared them.

The nine month long war has also depleted the army’s munitions and resources, a growing concern ahead of an expected wider war against Hezbollah in Lebanon.

“The military is in full support of a hostage deal and a cease-fire,” Eyal Hulata, Israel’s former national security adviser, who speaks regularly with senior military officials, told The NY Times.“They believe that they can always go back and engage Hamas militarily in the future.

“They understand that a pause in Gaza makes de-escalation more likely in Lebanon. And they have less munitions, less spare parts, less energy than they did before — so they also think a pause in Gaza gives us more time to prepare in case a bigger war does break out with Hezbollah.”

It came as the UN humanitarian coordinator for Gaza said 1.9 million people -- 80 percent of the territory’s population -- were now displaced, adding she was “deeply concerned” by reports of new evacuation orders for Khan Yunis.

The United Nations has estimated that up to 250,000 people are impacted by the Israeli military order for civilians to leave parts of Khan Yunis and Rafah in Gaza, which has a total population of 2.4 million.

“Palestinian civilians in Gaza have been plunged into an abyss of suffering -- their home lives shattered, their lives upended,” the UN coordinator for Gaza, Sigrid Kaag, told the Security Council.

“Over one million people have been displaced once again, desperately seeking shelter and safety, (and) 1.9 million people are now displaced across Gaza,” she said.

“I’m deeply concerned about reports of new evacuation orders issued in the area of Khan Yunis,” Kaag added.“The war has not merely created the most profound of humanitarian crises. It has unleashed a maelstrom of human misery.”

Witnesses described intense bombardment on Tuesday around Khan Yunis, in some of the heaviest fighting in southern Gaza’s main city since Israeli troops withdrew in early April. A hospital source said shelling killed at least eight people.

The assault followed a rocket barrage aimed at southern Israel on Monday morning that the Islamic Jihad militant group, allied with Hamas, claimed responsibility for.

The latest evacuation order has renewed fears among Palestinians, many of whom have been displaced multiple times by the Israel-Hamas war that started in October, with thousands fleeing.

More Palestinians escaped from eastern Khan Yunis, travelling by car, on foot, or by horse or donkey carts, carrying their belongings, an AFP photographer said.

With AFP