Right-wing extremist factions of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's coalition government are ramping up pressure to keep up the Gaza war, after Israeli troops withdrew from the southern city of Khan Younis at the weekend.
"If the prime minister decides to end the war without a broad assault on Rafah to decisively defeat Hamas, he will have no mandate to continue as prime minister," National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir wrote on social media platform X on Monday.
Despite fierce international opposition, Israel has maintained for weeks that it is planning a ground incursion into the southern Gaza city of Rafah, where more than 1 million Palestinians are currently sheltering from fighting elsewhere in the sealed-off coastal area.
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich from the far-right National Religious Party–Religious Zionism in a statement called for an immediate meeting of Israel's war Cabinet, "in light of the reports of an end to the war."
Smotrich said he had written an urgent letter on the matter to Netanyahu over "the situation, in which the ground troops are being withdrawn from the Gaza Strip and the intensity of the war as a whole is being diminished, while the start of the Rafah offensive has been delayed for many weeks."
Smotrich added that there were reports of Israel's willingness to allow the return of residents to the north of the Gaza Strip "and to bring about a de facto end to the war."
The minister also complained that the Israeli team tasked with negotiating a ceasefire deal with Palestinian Islamist organization Hamas to facilitate the release of the hostages held in Gaza has been given "a very broad mandate." Smotrich said that only the Cabinet as a whole was authorized to make such decisions.
"Instead of taking our foot off the accelerator, we must increase the pressure on Hamas in the Gaza Strip. This is the only way to get the hostages back and destroy Hamas," he wrote in the statement.
Netanyahu, who faces a slew of corruption charges, depends on his far-right religious partners in government for political survival, observers believe.
Meanwhile, he is also facing mounting pressure from Israeli society, with tens of thousands taking to the streets in recent weeks to demand his resignation over his handling of the Gaza war, particularly the fact that more than six month in, Hamas and other militants are still holding more than 100 Israeli hostages.
Netanyahu is also under pressure from the international community in light of the staggering Palestinian death toll in the war, triggered by the October 7 attacks on Israel, as well as the poor amount of aid reaching the starving population in Gaza.
