JERUSALEM — A split has opened up within Israel’s political and military leadership over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s insistence on a comprehensive deal to end the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip, according to four officials with knowledge of the internal deliberations.
Several leading figures in the military, the Mossad spy agency and the government are calling instead for a return to the phased approach to resolving the conflict, beginning with a temporary truce.
Netanyahu and other senior ministers now favor a more elusive deal that aims to free all the remaining hostages at once and end the war on terms set by Israel — terms that Hamas has so far rejected. The phased approach would free about half the hostages initially in exchange for some Palestinian prisoners.
Those opposing Netanyahu’s stance include the military chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir; David Barnea, the head of Israel’s Mossad spy agency; Tzachi Hanegbi, Netanyahu’s national security adviser; and Foreign Minister Gideon Saar, according to the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive issue. The opponents have not commented publicly. The prime minister’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment, and the Israeli military declined to comment.
Hamas recently said it would agree to the latest proposal for a phased ceasefire deal put forward by Egypt and Qatar, two mediating countries. A temporary truce would postpone Israel’s planned advance into the heart of Gaza City, which the government portrays as one of Hamas’ last strongholds.
The opponents of Netanyahu’s position generally attend meetings of Israel’s security Cabinet, a small group of political and security leaders. Security Cabinet discussions are classified, but local news reports described a meeting on Sunday as stormy.
As preparations for the military’s advance on Gaza City move ahead, and with negotiations for a truce at an impasse, it is not clear what, if any, influence these opponents will have. Zamir, who will play a major role in this next phase of the war, has also expressed reservations about the planned Gaza City campaign.
While Netanyahu has not publicly ruled out a phased deal, and may be holding out for better terms, some of his ministers have described the gradual approach as no longer relevant.
The phased deal would begin with a 60-day ceasefire and the start of negotiations for a long-term cessation of hostilities along with the release of the remaining hostages, living and deceased, in exchange for more Palestinian prisoners.
Even before Hamas announced its broad acceptance of the phased deal in mid-August, Netanyahu appeared to have switched gears to focus on reaching an “all-or-nothing” deal, with the support of the Trump administration.
For most of the past year, Netanyahu had insisted that negotiations for a Gaza ceasefire be focused solely on a phased deal on the grounds that a comprehensive deal on Israel’s terms would be too hard to achieve, and a temporary ceasefire gave Israel the option of going back to fighting.
About a month ago, Steve Witkoff, the Trump administration’s special envoy for peace missions, said in a meeting with families of the hostages that President Donald Trump wanted to see all the living hostages released at once. Israel believes that about 20 captives are still alive out of a total of 48 who remain in Gaza.
The spokesperson for Qatar’s Foreign Ministry, Majed al-Ansari, told journalists at a briefing Tuesday that Israel had not yet responded to Hamas’ acceptance of a ceasefire in phases.
The debate over different approaches to a ceasefire is highly charged for families of the hostages and many other Israelis.
A partial deal would mean choosing which hostages get released first and who gets left behind. There would be no guarantee that negotiations for the next phase would succeed where they failed before, or that Hamas would ultimately be willing to relinquish all its hostages, which would leave the group without leverage.
Images released recently by the captors of weak and emaciated hostages have underlined the urgency of their situation, leading many Israelis to conclude it would be better to at least get 10 out alive sooner, rather than try to negotiate a more complicated comprehensive deal.
The government says the aim of the proposed military operation is to root Hamas out of one of its last strongholds and achieve a decisive victory over the group that led the deadly attack against Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, which set off the current war.
There is growing skepticism that Israel could now achieve militarily what it has not managed to accomplish in the 22 months of war.
Zamir has also pushed back in recent weeks against the government’s insistence on extending full military control over Gaza City, according to Israeli security officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive issues.
He has shared concerns about the exhaustion and fitness of reservists, these officials said, amid warnings that expanding operations could endanger the hostages and kill more Palestinian civilians.
In the security Cabinet meeting Sunday, Zamir again warned against the planned takeover of Gaza City on grounds that it could lead to the military becoming solely responsible for the administration of Gaza, according to a fifth official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the Cabinet’s confidential deliberations.
Yet there are signs that plans for the offensive are moving ahead.
The military said Tuesday that thousands of reservists who had been called up in preparation for the operation in Gaza City were reporting for duty as part of what it called a gradual force buildup.
Several thousand reservists already in active duty have had their orders of service prolonged for this operation, the military added.
As forces were preparing to launch the new offensive, an Israeli airstrike on a three-story apartment building in Gaza City on Tuesday killed 11 people and trapped seven others under the rubble, said Mahmoud Basal, a spokesperson for the Palestinian Civil Defense in Gaza, an emergency rescue service under the Hamas-run Interior Ministry.
It was not immediately known if the seven who were trapped, all believed to be children, including a year-old baby, were still alive.
They were among several dozen people in Gaza reported killed Tuesday, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants.