Netanyahu's All Fronts: Offensive on Gaza and Occupation in Syria

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the cat with seven lives, does not put any brakes on the forced expansion of Israel's borders. He does not close any fronts, if anything he expands them, from Palestine to Syria.

He has no qualms about exploiting the feelings of anger and revenge that the return of the Bibas family's bodies has rekindled, bringing a good part of Israeli society back to the trauma and shock of October 7.

As Amos Harel wrote yesterday in Haaretz , it matters little that Hamas had no intention of exchanging Shiri Bibas's body for the corpse of a Palestinian woman, nor that the family had been kidnapped by a criminal gang, the Lords of the Desert, and was only later recovered by the Islamic movement.

The important thing for Netanyahu is to build "alternative routes as an extension of the first phase (of the truce) - adds Arel - so that he can postpone (...) the full withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Gaza Strip and the end of the war."

THE OBJECTIVE is not secret at all, Netanyahu said it publicly on the eve of the truce coming into force, on January 19: the offensive would resume after the first phase that ends, in theory, on March 1. Extending it would mean ensuring the return of a few more hostages than the 33 planned (because Hamas desperately needs the truce) but not all 69 of those to be freed in the second phase and of whom it is estimated that at least half are dead.

Permanent war on multiple fronts with a common denominator: occupying as much land as possible, in the West Bank, Gaza, Syria, Lebanon. In the Strip, rumors of a resumption of the offensive, which could coincide with the holy month of Ramadan (starting Friday), terrorize a traumatized community, deprived of everything and subjected to continuous Israeli violations of the truce, starting with the failure to enter mobile homes (15 out of 60 thousand planned) and tents (20 thousand out of 200 thousand).

Fear is matched by grief over the failure to return home of 400 Gazans, including a hundred women and children, captured in Gaza after October 7 and held without charges. The West Bank shares the same suffering: on Saturday night, the families of a hundred prisoners waited in the rain for hours before being told by Netanyahu that he would not release anyone.

Yesterday, far-right minister Bezalel Smotrich claimed responsibility for violating the agreement, while the Israeli press reported a new clause: Israel will release the 620 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for an additional swap in the coming hours, the bodies of two hostages killed in the Strip, and the end of the “ceremonies” on the Hamas stage.

THE ISLAMIC MOVEMENT has reportedly accepted, backtracking from its morning declarations: negotiations on the second phase suspended until the release of prisoners last Saturday. The announcement was made by Abdul Latif al-Qanou, spokesman for Hamas, who accused Tel Aviv of repeatedly violating the January agreement in order to make it implode.

Among the most painful violations are the killings, over one hundred since January 19, with drones or by snipers. The last two victims, yesterday, which – with eleven bodies recovered between Sunday and Monday – bring the toll confirmed since October 7 to 48,340 Palestinians killed (another 12-14 thousand missing).

Netanyahu spoke freely on Sunday, while Hassan Nasrallah's funeral was taking place in Beirut and Hezbollah was building up a presence of one million.

With Israeli jets flying over the Lebanese capital, breaking the sound barrier and violating – once again – the ceasefire, Netanyahu reiterated his intention not to leave southern Lebanon, not right away, much less the piece of Syria that he occupied – amid international silence – in December, immediately after the fall of the Assad regime.

“WE WILL NOT ALLOW the forces of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham nor the new Syrian army to enter the area south of Damascus,” he said, adding that he was aiming for “the full demilitarization of southern Syria by Syrian troops, in the provinces of Quneitra, Daraa and Suwayda.” Since 1967, Israel has occupied two-thirds of the Golan Heights and for three months the buffer zone controlled by the United Nations, where it has established its own military bases. Israel will remain there, Netanyahu concluded, “for an indefinite time.”

In Damascus, the self-appointed president Ahmad al-Sharaa is silent, but the streets are not: since yesterday, tens of thousands have been demonstrating against the Israeli occupation, in Swisah and Quneitra, occupied cities, in Daraa, in Khan Arnaba, in Busra. The slogan is unique: "Syria belongs to the Syrians."