Israeli Newspaper: Why is Netanyahu prepared to accept a cease-fire with Hezbollah but not Hamas?

By Amir Tibon 

Despite the fact that Israel has eliminated almost all of Hamas' senior leadership, and the urgency of securing the hostages' release – it is actually Gaza where Netanyahu and his allies reject a cease-fire agreement

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich during a Knesset session in Jerusalem on Monday.

The biggest news story in the Middle East this week has been the unmistakable momentum behind a cease-fire agreement between Israel and Hezbollah. The war between the Israel Defense Forces and the Lebanese terror group continues to rage on, with daily Israeli bombings in different parts of Lebanon and rockets being launched deep into Israeli territory. Still, diplomatic efforts to put an end to the fighting seem to be gathering steam.

U.S. envoy Amos Hochstein is displaying optimism that a deal to end the northern front of Israel's more-than-yearlong war can be reached within days, and implemented before President Joe Biden leaves the White House exactly two months from tomorrow. Biden's successor, President-elect Donald Trump, has voiced his support for a cease-fire after promising Lebanese-American voters ahead of the election that he would bring peace to their homeland.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his far-right coalition partners also seem willing to reach a war-ending deal in the north, which would be based on UN Security Council Resolution 1701, and include the withdrawal of Hezbollah forces from the border with Israel. Trump's push for a deal is probably having an impact on Netanyahu: the last thing he needs is to annoy the incoming president by prolonging a war Trump pledged to finish.

But all of that raises one unavoidable question: Why are Netanyahu and his allies showing relative flexibility in negotiations over a Lebanon cease-fire, but refusing to do the same with regards to Gaza?

No one in Israel believes that a cease-fire agreement with Hezbollah will mean that the powerful terror group is no longer a threat to Israelis citizens. Yes, Hezbollah suffered devastating losses in recent months, starting with the exploding pagers operation and followed by a breathtaking series of assassinations of its senior leadership. But even after all these blows, the organization continues to fire hundreds of rockets into Israel on a daily basis, and has successfully utilized drones to strike deep into Israel and overcome the country's aerial defense systems.

Hezbollah will still be capable of doing all of these things after a cease-fire, and will remain an important, powerful player in the Lebanese political arena. No one in Israel will be able to argue that the organization had been completely decimated.

Yet in Gaza, an agreement that would lead to the release of Israel's approximately 100 hostages from the hands of Hamas, in return for a cease-fire that would end the war there, is treated by Netanyahu and his allies as a form of blasphemy. The same logic that guides the Lebanon negotiations – Israel's enemy has been crippled and weakened but not totally destroyed, and now it's time to end the fighting, allow Israeli communities evacuated from the border area to return home, and avoid further Israeli casualties – is just as relevant in the case of Gaza.

Yet despite the fact that Israel has eliminated almost all of Hamas' senior leadership, and the urgency of securing the release of the hostages – who are still being held by terrorists, facing daily threats of hunger, rape and torture – it is actually Gaza where Netanyahu and his allies reject a war-ending cease-fire agreement.

It is hard not to suspect that the reason for the differentiation between Lebanon and Gaza has to do with the wishes of the Israeli far-right to construct settlements in the Strip, mostly in its northern part which Israel has been trying for the past two months to empty of all Palestinian civilians. There is no similar demand from the far right to build settlements in Lebanon.

The dismal result is that while the war in Lebanon seems to be moving toward a resolution, the fighting in Gaza continues and the lives of the hostages are in extreme, immediate danger.