Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right allies step up pressure to the Israeli leader to reject a Gaza ceasefire plan, calling into question the stability of his government if he does not go ahead with the attack on Rafah.

Hamas representatives were expected in Cairo today as mediators stepped up efforts to broker a cease-fire agreement ahead of a planned Israeli offensive against Rafah, home to around one million internally displaced Palestinians.

However, if a ceasefire is agreed, the attack plans must be put on the back burner for a period of calm, according to a source familiar with the progress of the talks, during which dozens of Israeli hostages will be freed in exchange for the release of Palestinians. prisoners.

Yesterday, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich called on Netanyahu not to back down and go ahead with the ground offensive against Hamas in Rafah, despite international pressure on the Israeli prime minister to scrap the plans due to the high risks of civilian and military casualties. spectrum of humanitarian disaster.

But a ceasefire would be a humiliating defeat, Smotrich said in a video message to Netanyahu. If he does not succeed in eliminating Hamas “a government under your leadership will have no right to exist,” he said.

Smotrich was succeeded by Israel’s Minister of Internal Security, his other far-right government partner, Itamar Ben-Gvir, who repeated a January 30 post in X that he had made during a previous round of negotiations: “Reminder: an irresponsible deal = dissolution of the government”.

Although the prime minister’s office did not react to the statements, Benny Gantz, the centrist former defense minister who has been part of Netanyahu’s war council since October, said the release of the hostages took precedence over the Rafa attack.

Rejecting a responsible deal to secure the release of the hostages will deprive the government of any legitimacy, Benny Gantz wrote in his statement, given the failure of Israeli security apparatus on October 7 and the suffocating public pressure in Israel for the return of the hostages.

Although his popularity has soared in the opinion polls, Benny Gantz has no possibility of overthrowing the Netanyahu government, since the Israeli prime minister, with the help of Smotrich and Ben-Gvir, controls 64 of the 120 Knesset seats.

But Netanyahu’s two far-right government partners have the ability to overthrow the government.

And in this case, Netanyahu will be forced to seek the support of centrist parties or call an election.

An election contest, however, poses a major threat to Netanyahu.

Successive opinion polls confirm the erosion of his popularity after the October 7 attacks. According to all predictions, the current ruling coalition would face a crushing defeat in an eventual election.

At the same time, Israel’s longest-serving prime minister is on trial for corruption, while facing a wave of protest over the way the war was handled.

The war has destroyed most of the Gaza Strip and uprooted most of its 2.3 million residents. But he has not dismantled Hamas, as Netanyahu had promised after October 7, while more than 130 hostages remain in the hands of the Islamist group.

“Bring them back” protests are on the rise.

The families of the hostages accuse Netanyahu of putting his own political survival above the fate of their loved ones.

Einav Zangauker, the mother of 24-year-old Matan Zangauker who was abducted on October 7 from a kibbutz, said there will be no forgiveness if the government misses today’s chance for a truce deal.

And addressing Netanyahu during a rally on Saturday in Tel Aviv, she said: “You have left 133 hostages to rot in the tunnels of Hamas just to keep your chair.”