The New Yorker:

The public’s fears for the fate of the ceasefire and the hostages have become a struggle over the rule of law.

By Bernard Avishai

As if the Israeli people’s losses from October 7th are not grievous enough, their fears for the hostages not haunting enough, and the miseries of the Gazans not shaming enough, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is bringing his country back to war. He’s also exacerbating its divisions, pitting orthodoxy and coercion against the rule of secular law. “Netanyahu’s true objective appears increasingly clear,” Haaretz’ssenior defense analyst Amos Harel wrote, “a gradual slide toward an authoritarian-style regime, whose survival he will try to secure through perpetual war on multiple fronts.”

On March 18th, with the Trump Administration’s approval, Israeli aircraft renewed the bombing of Gaza. Raids killed at least five senior Hamas officials. They also killed, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, some four hundred people, more than two-thirds of whom were women and children. Since then, both Hamas and the Houthis in Yemen have resumed firing rockets and missiles at Israel, setting off air-raid sirens in the center of the country; and Israeli ground forces have pushed into the Netzarim Corridor, once again cutting Gaza in half. Rockets were also fired from Lebanon at the northern Israeli town of Metula. It’s hard now to see what will stop the escalation.

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