Maccabi Tel Aviv’s fans chant slogans at the end of the Europa League match between PAOK and Maccabi Tel Aviv at Toumpa stadium, in Thessaloniki, Greece
| Photo Credit: AP

Benjamin Netanyahu, the Houdini of Israeli politics and its longest serving Prime Minister, has been written off many times before.

But with thousands of protesters on the streets every night this week demanding his resignation, and growing anger at his handling of the war in Gaza, many wonder how long the veteran political escapologist can survive.

The usually bullish Mr. Netanyahu, 74, appears both physically and politically fragile.

Deeply unpopular — no more than 4% of Israelis trust him, according to a poll late last year — the war in Gaza is taking its toll on the man Israelis call Bibi.

Visibly frail and sallow, he was short-tempered and distracted during a television speech on Saturday which his Likud party colleague and a former Minister Limor Livnat called “catastrophic”.

The left-wing daily Haaretz said Mr. Netanyahu looked “like a frightened tyrant”.

Mr. Netanyahu was even more gaunt when he left hospital in Jerusalem on Tuesday after a hernia operation only to have to face the ire of the international community after an Israeli strike killed seven aid workers for a U.S.-based group in Gaza.

“It happens in war,” Mr. Netanyahu said with a tact which may not have been appreciated in the White House, which said it was “heartbroken” at the deaths.

‘Bouncing back’

“Netanyahu has been buried politically many times before and bounced back,” said Emmanuel Navon, a former Likud member and political science professor at Tel Aviv University.

“But this time is different because of October 7. It is not the same country. It’s over for Bibi.”

“He is 74, does not do any exercise, has a very hard job and he had a pacemaker put in six months ago,” Mr. Navon said referring to the Prime Minister’s fragile health.

But Mr. Navon doubts whether Mr. Netanyahu will be forced from office by the new wave of mass street protests despite the fury of the hostages’ families.

Einav Zangauker, the mother of one of the 134 still held by Hamas, branded him a “pharaoh, a slayer of first-borns” at Tuesday night’s rally outside parliament in Jerusalem, the fourth consecutive night of protests.

They have seen hostage families uniting with anti-government demonstrators who spent nine months on the streets last year trying to stop controversial judicial reforms pushed by Mr. Netanyahu’s far-right allies.

The “disaster” of October 7 would have killed off any other politician. But Mr. Navon compared Mr. Netanyahu’s hold over the ruling Likud party to former U.S. President Donald Trump’s hold over U.S. Republicans.

“Likud lawmakers are petrified to be penalised in the next primaries by the ‘Trio’ — Bibi, his wife and his son who decide everything,” the professor said.

“Peoples’ political lives depend on him. He has surfed populism, his candidates now tend to be conspiracy theory wackos. It is not the same party of 20 years ago.” With his coalition reeling from crisis to crisis, enemies seem to be circling as never before around the leader of Israel’s most right-wing government ever.

Prosecutors are pushing ahead with a corruption trial against him despite the war, and protesters tried to break through police barriers to get to his home on Tuesday for the second time in four days.

‘Losing command’

Even his Defence Minister, Likud stalwart Yoav Gallant, is defying him over the deeply divisive issue of ultra-Orthodox Jews escaping compulsory military service even as the war in Gaza rages and another looms with Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Mr. Netanyahu has long relied on the support of religious parties to govern.

“Excusing a whole community when the military needs so much more manpower is unforgivable,” General Reuven Benkler said at an anti-government rally on Monday.

The 65-year-old came out of retirement to serve in the north after the Hamas attack which resulted in 1,160 deaths in Israel, mostly civilians, according to a tally of Israeli official figures.

Israel’s retaliatory campaign has killed at least 32,916 people, mostly women and children, according to the Health Ministry in Hamas-run Gaza.

Gen. Benkler said the “hostages will not come home while Bibi is still in power”, adding that Mr. Netanyahu was dragging out the war in Gaza to prolong his rule — a claim endlessly repeated at the protests.

“He doesn’t give a damn about anyone else apart from himself”, the General added.

Mr. Netanyahu’s three-decade hold over Israeli politics was based on divide and rule, Mr. Navon said, adding that October 7 shattered his claim that only he could keep the country safe.

‘Delusional promise’

His promise of elections in 2026 was “delusional”, the analyst said. “But protesters’ demands for them now are also unrealistic. The end of the year when the war has been won in Gaza and the north is more reasonable,” he added.

On Tuesday night, Ms. Zangauker accused Mr. Netanyahu of letting Israel’s guard fall, declaring at a mass protest to thunderous cheers: “It’s all your fault — 240 were kidnapped on your watch.”

“You nurtured and raised Hamas,” she added, and yet “you call us traitors (for protesting during a war) when you are the traitor.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed on March 17 to send ground forces into Gaza’s southern Rafah city despite growing international concern over the fate of Palestinian civilians sheltering there.

Mr. Netanyahu, whose security and war Cabinets were later due to discuss latest international efforts towards a truce deal, stressed that “no amount of international pressure will stop us from realising all the goals of the war”.

“To do this, we will also operate in Rafah,” he told a Cabinet meeting, hours before he was set to meet visiting German Chancellor Olaf Scholz for talks on the war raging since October 7.

Israel has repeatedly threatened to launch a ground offensive against Hamas militants in Rafah, now home to nearly 1.5 million mostly displaced Gazans sheltering near the Egyptian border.

U.S. President Joe Biden, whose country provides Israel with billions of dollars in military assistance, has said a Rafah invasion would be a “red line” without credible measures to protect civilians.

U.N. World Health Organisation chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus urged Israel “in the name of humanity” not to launch a Rafah assault, warning that “this humanitarian catastrophe must not be allowed to worsen”.

Envoys were planning to meet in Qatar soon to revive stalled talks for a ceasefire and hostage release deal.

A Hamas proposal calls for an Israeli withdrawal from “all cities and populated areas” in Gaza during a six-week truce and for more humanitarian aid, according to an official from the Palestinian group.

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Israel plans to attend the talks, with Cabinet members due to “decide on the mandate of the delegation in charge of the negotiations before its departure for Doha”, Mr. Netanyahu’s office said, without giving a date for when they would leave.

The war meanwhile raged on, and overnight Israeli bombardment across the Hamas-ruled territory killed at least 61 Palestinians, the Gaza Health Ministry said.

The dead included 12 members of the same family whose house was hit in Deir al-Balah, in central Gaza.

Palestinian girl Leen Thabit, retrieving a white dress from under the rubble of their flattened house, cried as she told AFP her cousin was killed in the strike.

“She’s dead. Only her dress is left,” Ms. Thabit said. “What do they want from us?”

Second aid ship

The war was triggered by Hamas’s October 7 attack on southern Israel that resulted in about 1,160 deaths, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official figures.

Israel’s retaliatory campaign against Hamas has killed at least 31,645 people in Gaza, most of them women and children, according to the Health Ministry.

Shelling and clashes were reported in south Gaza’s main city of Khan Yunis and elsewhere, and the Israeli Army said its forces had killed “approximately 18 terrorists” in central Gaza since March 16.

More than five months of war and an Israeli siege have led to dire humanitarian conditions in Gaza, where the U.N. has repeatedly warned of looming famine for the coastal territory’s 2.4 million people.

Also Read | Top U.S. Democrat Schumer calls for new elections in Israel, saying Netanyahu is an obstacle to peace

As the flow of aid trucks into Gaza has slowed, a second ship was due to depart from Cyprus along a new maritime corridor to bring food and relief goods, said officials of the island-nation.

On March 16 the U.S. charity World Central Kitchen said its team had finished unloading supplies from a barge towed by Spanish aid vessel Open Arms which had pioneered the sea route.

Jordan on March 17 announced the latest aid airdrop over northern Gaza together with German, U.S. and Egyptian aircraft.

The United Nations has reported particular difficulty in accessing the north, where residents say they have resorted to eating animal fodder, and where some have stormed the few aid trucks that have made it through.

Malnutrition and disease

Palestinian militants seized about 250 Israeli and foreign hostages during the October 7 attack. Dozens were released during a week-long truce in November, and Israel believes about 130 remain in Gaza including 32 presumed dead.

Mr. Netanyahu has faced domestic pressure over the remaining captives, with protesters rallying in Tel Aviv on March 16 carrying banners urging a “hostage deal now”.

“The civilians… need to demand from their leaders to do the right thing,” said one demonstrator, Omer Keidar, 27.

In Rafah, the crisis has only grown worse, said medical staff at a clinic run by Palestinian volunteers that offers treatment for displaced Gazans.

Also Read | The first ship to use a new sea route approaches Gaza with 200 tons of aid

“We’re facing shortages of medications,” said Dr. Samar Gregea, herself displaced from Gaza City in the north.

“There are a lot of patients in the camp, with all children suffering from malnutrition” and a spike in hepatitis A cases, she told AFP.

“Children require foods high in sugars, like dates, which are currently unavailable.”