Israel and Hamas appear open to new talks

Israel has indicated the war could last for months, but both Israeli and U.S. officials seem to agree that a withdrawal from Gaza is in sight, David Ignatius noted in The Washington Post. “Think of what’s ahead as the day before ’the day after,’ ” he wrote. It’s likely that fighting will continue, but efforts will be made to establish a governing body that can step in as Hamas’ authority breaks down. Israel needs to plan “for what will be a massive rebuilding of the shattered landscape in Gaza,” Ignatius argued.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is trying to pull the U.S. into a broader conflict in the Middle East, Israeli newspaper Haaretz argued. The war is playing out not only in the Gaza Strip, but in the Red Sea, where Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels have targeted shipping vessels. The U.S. considers the attacks an undeclared war by Tehran — but it’s unlikely Washington is interested in a broader conflict. “Netanyahu is blatantly trying to gaslight both the U.S. administration and the Israeli public by advocating repeatedly that this is a much bigger war than Gaza,” Alon Pinkas wrote.

Protests have been growing in Israel as the government has stalled on securing the release of more hostages. But support for the war remains high, in part because the Israeli public is so inextricably linked to the Israel Defense Forces, one expert told The Guardian. “In Israel, the people are the army and the army is the people. It’s impossible to direct criticism directly at the army because their children, husbands and brothers are still busy serving right now,” Dahlia Scheindlin, author of The Crooked Timber of Democracy in Israel, told the newspaper.