Benjamin Netanyahu has survived so many dark moments that it would be rash to assume that he won’t navigate his way round this one too. But from an Israeli point of view, the sombre overnight news that six more bodies of hostages have been recovered from southern Gaza is probably the darkest of all since they and almost 250 others were seized in Hamas’s invasion and massacre on 7 October.
One reason is that the Israeli military’s initial assessment is that their captors may have murdered the hostages before fleeing, as troops closed in on the tunnel in Rafah where they were held, possibly only days before their bodies were found. Which means they could have been released in a hostage deal in recent months – a deal which the polls show a majority of Israelis want, and increasingly blame Netanyahu for resisting.
And which in turn can only increase the desperate urgency in many Israeli minds for an immediate Gaza ceasefire and the release of the surviving hostages still in captivity there. Hence the multiple demands, including by Benny Gantz – leader of the centrist National Unity Party and until June a member of the war cabinet – for mass demonstrations across Israel. Hence too, the successful call by the official opposition leader Yair Lapid for Histadrut – Israel’s trade union federation........