Transcripts from Israeli war cabinet meeting show Netanyahu ignored calls from defence officials to advance ceasefire talks

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/34331174

Published date: 7 August 2025 11:52 BST

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected calls from senior ministers to advance ceasefire negotiations and deliberately restricted all aid to Gaza in order to force a surrender from Hamas, internal government transcripts published by Israeli news outlet Channel 13 have revealed.

The transcripts from an Israeli war cabinet meeting on 1 March show that Netanyahu ignored repeated calls from senior defence officials to move to the second phase of the ceasefire agreement in order to secure the release of Israeli captives, and then to renew hostilities after.

Netanyahu instead chose to unilaterally break the ceasefire in March and bar all aid to Gaza, in the hopes of forcing a surrender by Hamas.

This was despite Hamas complying with the talks, contrary to the war cabinet’s expectations.

  • Saleh@feddit.orgEnglish
    102·
    7 hours ago

    If there is no armed resistance in Gaza, Israel can “mob up” without any difficulty.

    The reason why many intelligence and military people now voiced concern is not because they care about the lives of the Palestinian people, but because Gaza is a nightmare to conquer and occupy. Hamas and other armed groups are very creative and had decades to fortify Gaza for another invasion. For instance a lot of the explosives they use for their traps are unexploded ordnance from Israeli attacks.

    Israel in large part used to blow up buildings in Gaza with US made anti-tank mines. They move to use the D9 armored bulldozers instead, because the fighters could capture significant stockpiles of mines and use them to blow up Israeli tanks. Now the bulldozers are easy targets for sniper fire and explosive attacks. Israel seems to rarely send in soldiers on foot, instead relying on heavily armored troop carriers that end up becoming sitting ducks and targeted with self made rocket launchers, shaped charges or having an explosive dropped in the often open hatch. There even was a video of fighters using an artillery rocket by simply laying on the ground and triggering the charge so it would fly forward towards a target.

    Israels army hasn’t fought a proper war on the ground for many years. Most soldiers are just used to pushing around women and children in the Westbank than to actually fighting against an armed opposition. The key strength of Israel is its airforce. But bombing things to rubble only gets you so far, as the US and NATO have seen in Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen…

    • frongt@lemmy.zipEnglish
      1·
      3 hours ago

      While true, are there enough Palestinians left in Gaza to mount such a resistance?

      • Saleh@feddit.orgEnglish
        2·
        3 hours ago

        You don’t need many people to make it hell for the occupiers to occupy. The Sunni “insurgency” in US+allies occupied Iraq was estimated to have about 3,000-7,000 fighters. Meanwhile the US had up to 160,000 occupation soldiers staged in Iraq around 2005-2006 before slowly giving up against the resistance.

        This is also why Israel aims on building concentration camps. It makes resistance much harder to organize than if people still have their own homes, have jobs and can meet without direct surveillance.