The Philadelphi Corridor.

“Through the street outside Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s house passed a slow procession of empty coffins - carried by protesters in a sea of Israeli flags. Since six Israeli hostages were found dead in a Gaza tunnel last weekend, the weight of the war there has hung heavier on Israel’s leader.” Said a reporter for the BBC. The hostages were executed by their Hamas guards shortly before IDF troops discovered their bodies. “I think the fact that they were alive and murdered right before they could have been saved – that broke it,” said one of the protestors in Tel Aviv. “That’s a breaking point for a lot of people –they realise that sitting at home is not going to do anything.” Tens of thousands of people took to the streets again on Monday, after mass demonstrations flooded the streets a day earlier. Many want to see this moment as a turning point, but Prime Minister Netanyahu has been here before. He’s lived through months of these street protests – and years of similar ones. Protected by a parliamentary majority, his strategy has largely been to ignore their demands. Maybe something has changed. For the second time in 48 hours, Netanyahu held a press conference to argue his uncompromising position on the Philadelphi corridor in Gaza, the major sticking point to a ceasefire. On Monday he addressed Israeli media, on Wednesday night it was international journalists. That he has held these two events in as many days, after months of no press conferences, can only be explained by the pressure he is under, domestically and from foreign leaders. Both press conferences were defiant and uncompromising - there was little hope for the families of hostages desperate for a deal and a reunion with their loved ones. Netanyahu's argument is that Hamas will try to rearm and potentially smuggle hostages out of Gaza if his forces leave the southern corridor. He believes, maybe rightly, that if they left then international pressure would prevent them returning. On the one hand Netanyahu insists Israel doesn't want to remain in Gaza forever, but on the other hand he says there is no alternative force that could or would keep security on the border. Netanyahu stands almost alone right now, under extreme pressure from his own people and The White House and surrounded by a shrinking cohort of trusted advisers. He is convinced he is acting for the future of Israel but he hasn't convinced even some of his closest allies. Netanyahu is fighting to stay in Gaza, fighting to stay in power and fighting to secure his legacy, badly damaged after the security failures of October 7 and the backlash for failing to get the hostages out. Many other leaders would have resigned long before now, and this might be the fight of Netanyahu's political life, but you wouldn't bet against him winning it. In another interview he said, “It’s unlikely that a realistic security plan exists that would prevent the smuggling of weapons under that critical buffer zone between Egypt and Gaza. Bring me anyone who will actually show us, not on paper, not in words, but on the ground, day after day, week after week, month after month, that they can actually prevent the recurrence of weapons smuggling. If such a plan exists, we’re open to considering it. But I don’t see that happening… and until that happens, we’re there, with the IDF protecting the Philadelphi Corridor. “When we want to come back [to Philadelphi] we’ll pay an exorbitant price in many fields,” including the loss of soldiers’ lives in retaking the Corridor, Netanyahu told reporters in Jerusalem, “We’re in now, [if] we leave, we won’t [be able to] come back. You know it. Everybody here knows it. Everybody in here knows what pressure will be put on us so that we don’t come back, what price we’ll have to pay if we do want to come back, it’s just not going to happen,” Netanyahu stated. Many well qualified military analysts, more familiar with the Philadelphi Corridor than Netanyahu is, claim that it can, if need be, retaken quickly without loss of life. Tens of thousands of people took to the streets again on Monday, after mass demonstrations flooded Tel Aviv last night. Many want to see this moment as a turning point, but Prime Minister Netanyahu has been here before. He’s lived through months of these street protests – and years of similar ones. Protected by a parliamentary majority, his strategy has largely been to ignore their demands. In a live press conference on Monday night, Netanyahu defied anyone to demand more concessions from Israel in its negotiations over a hostage and ceasefire deal, brokered by the US. "These murderers executed six of our hostages; they shot them in the back of the head,” he said. “And now, after this, we’re asked to show seriousness? We’re asked to make concessions?” The message that would send to Hamas, he said, would be: “kill more hostages [and] you’ll get more concessions.” A key demand of Hamas is that Israel withdraws all its forces from the Philadelphi Corridor. Israel’s security chiefs, including the defence minister, Yoav Gallant, have been widely reported in local media as supporting alternatives to keeping troops on the ground. Yoav Gallant has publicly pressed the cabinet to back a proposed compromise. The most dangerous moment of Israel’s previous mass protests, sparked by Netanyahu’s judicial reform plans, was when he tried to sack Gallant – and was then forced to reinstate him. If he tried that again, says political analyst Tamar Hermann of Israel’s Democracy Institute, that could be the real turning point for protests here. The threat to him from demonstrators now, she says, is “zero”. Most are left-leaning critics whose opposition to the prime minister runs far deeper than the hostage crisis in Gaza. “Netanyahu knows better than I do,” she said, “the best thing is to let it play as a safety valve – let people say, ‘we hate you, you are a murderer’.” Prime Minister Netanyahu, protected by his parliamentary majority, seems to believe he can ride out the demands for a deal being made from the street, at least for now. But the demands from his own defence minister, from the US president, could prove harder to ignore. I certainly hope so. Have a good weekend. Beni, 5th of September, 2024. A