Why has the Gaza war lasted so long? In a blockbuster investigative profile published this morning, the Times Magazine explains how Benjamin Netanyahu prolonged it partly for personal political reasons. Our Jerusalem bureau chief, Patrick Kingsley, and his colleagues Ronen Bergman and Natan Odenheimer spent six months interviewing more than 110 people and reviewing scores of military and government documents.

I spoke to Patrick — who is leaving his role this summer after four and a half years in what many have called the hardest job in journalism — about Netanyahu, the war and how they got people to share so many secrets.

Today is the 643rd day since the Oct. 7 attacks. Nobody imagined the war would go on this long. Why is it still going?

The strategic argument was that it gave Israel a better chance of defeating not only Hamas but also Hamas’s regional allies, Hezbollah and Iran. Whether you buy that argument or not, our reporting shows that Netanyahu was clearly often motivated by his personal interest instead of only by these national priorities.

But for Netanyahu, a truce also came with personal risk. As prime minister, he led a fragile coalition that depended on the support of far-right ministers who wanted to occupy Gaza, not withdraw from it. They sought a long war that would ultimately enable Israel to re-establish Jewish settlements in Gaza. If a cease-fire came too soon, these ministers might decide to collapse the ruling coalition. That would prompt early elections that polls showed Netanyahu would lose. Out of office, Netanyahu was vulnerable. Since 2020, he had been standing trial for corruption; the charges, which he denied, mostly related to granting favors to businessmen in exchange for gifts and favorable media coverage. Shorn of power, Netanyahu would lose the ability to force out the attorney general who oversaw his prosecution — as indeed his government would later attempt to do.

As the cabinet discussed other matters, an aide hurried into the meeting room with a document summarizing Israel’s new negotiating position, quietly placing it in front of Netanyahu. He gave it one last read, ticking off various points with his pen. The route to a truce presented real danger, but he seemed ready to move ahead.

Then Bezalel Smotrich, his finance minister, interrupted the proceedings. As a young activist in 2005, Smotrich was detained for weeks — though never charged — on suspicion of plotting to blow up vehicles on a major highway in order to slow the dismantling of Israeli settlements in Gaza. Along with Itamar Ben-Gvir, the far-right national-security minister, Smotrich was now one of the strongest advocates in the cabinet for re-establishing those settlements. He had recently called for most of Gaza’s Palestinian population to leave. Now, at the cabinet meeting, Smotrich declared that he had heard rumors of a plan for a deal. The details disturbed him. “I want you to know that if a surrender agreement like this is brought forward, you no longer have a government,” Smotrich said. “The government is finished.”

It was 5:44 p.m., according to minutes of the meeting. At that moment, the prime minister was forced to choose between the chance of a truce and his political survival — and Netanyahu opted for survival. There was no cease-fire plan, he promised Smotrich. “No, no, there’s no such thing,” he said. And as the cabinet discussion moved on, Netanyahu quietly leaned over to his security advisers and whispered what must have by then become obvious to them: “Don’t present the plan.”

‘A political resurrection’

The 12-day war with Iran in June has been widely understood as a moment of glory for Netanyahu, one that marks the culmination of a hard-fought comeback from the lowest point in his long political career, when he oversaw, in October 2023, the deadliest military failure in Israel’s history.

Tens of thousands of Israelis protested the government in Jerusalem on Thursday , a day after they marched to the capital and amassed in the city, blocking traffic for hours.

6 View gallery Anti-government protest in Jerusalem, Thursday night ( Photo: Alex Kolomisky )

Earlier this week, Israeli fighter jets began to pound Gaza several weeks after Netanyahu vowed that if Hamas does not accept American ceasefire proposals, he would order the army to reignite the war effort against the terrorist organization.

In response to both developments, demonstrators took to the streets, venting their frustrations.

“This is a very vocal protest which is characterized by the participation of former high-ranking security officials from the army and police,” Dr. Yonatan Freeman, an international relations expert at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, told The Media Line. “It is also happening during a war, with the hostage crisis in the background, making it not just a protest against Netanyahu, but a protest to get the hostages out.”

After years of protests against Netanyahu, it is hard to see what will make this one different, despite the presence of former senior figures in the defense and political establishment. In other words, the chances of this protest fulfilling the wish of its participants to remove Netanyahu from office are slim.

“It’s doomed to fail,” said Dina Dayan, a social activist and member of the Labor Party. “People are obsessed with Netanyahu, and all of this is delusional. There are no values or ideology behind the protests; they have nothing to sell. Being against Netanyahu is not a value.”

6 View gallery Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ( Photo: Yair Sagi )

Fifty-nine out of 251 hostages that Hamas took in its surprise offensive carried out against Israel on October 7 , 2023, remain in Gaza. At least 35 of them are presumed dead. American proposals brought forward by Steve Witkoff , the American Special Envoy to the Middle East, which were aimed at extending the ceasefire that ended last month and bringing to a release of more hostages, have been accepted by Israel and shot down by Hamas .

Hamas’ attack stunned Israel and shed light on years of Hamas’ empowerment enabled by the Jewish state. Netanyahu, a veteran at the helm, was viewed by many in the Israeli public as responsible for the situation. In addition, the senior military command failed to foresee the attack and respond swiftly to mitigate its scope. His approval ratings plummeted in the immediate aftermath of the war, and his opponents were quick to write him off, believing his era was over.

But the war elongated and evolved, quickly incorporating other fronts as Israel faced enemies near and far. Netanyahu, a political maverick, began recovering, taking credit for successes and brushing off demands for a national inquiry commission, claiming the time for investigation was only after the war effort concluded.

“Netanyahu is still pretty strong at the polls, and the base for his power continues to be solid,” Freeman said. “One of the main factors behind this is the lack of unity amongst the opposition. They cannot agree as to what needs to be done about the various issues.”

At 75, Netanyahu is a veteran figure on the political scene. Many Israelis have only a distant memory of politics without his presence. Throughout the years, no real alternative has emerged, neither from within his bloc nor from the opposition.

6 View gallery Opposition party leaders Yair Golan, Mansour Abbas, Avigdor Liberman, Benny Gantz and Yair Lapid ( Photo: Alex kolomoisky, Amit Shabi )

“On the personal level, he is far more charismatic than others,” Dr. Moti Gigi, a senior lecturer in the Sociology and Communications Department at the Sapir Academic College, told The Media Line. “Ideologically, what is the left offering? There is an ideological vacuum in the left bloc in Israel, in line with the global trend in other western democracies.”

The current protest movement is an impromptu coalition between hostage families and the opposition to Netanyahu, which has staged massive protests in recent years for alternating reasons. The Israeli leader has always been a contentious figure, but controversy further engulfed him in 2016 when the Israel Police began investigating him on suspicions of corruption, breach of trust, accepting bribes and fraud. Netanyahu was indicted in 2019 , and his trial began a year later. All the while, he has denied any wrongdoing, claiming he is being targeted for political reasons .

Israeli law allows a prime minister to remain in office while under trial.

“A sitting prime minister under trial creates doubts about his motives,” said Gigi. “This creates a tricky twilight zone which is dangerous to Israel’s already fragile democracy.”

Major protests against Netanyahu began during the COVID pandemic when the longest-serving Israeli premier was accused of infringing on privacy rights, mismanaging the financial fallout of the crisis, and easily imposing lockdowns in addition to enforcing a strict vaccination regime. The protest movement then evolved to focus on Netanyahu’s trial.

6 View gallery Anti-Netanyahu protest in Jerusalem ( Photo: Amir Levy/Getty Images )

Netanyahu has served six terms in office. Between 1996 and the present day, barring two non-consecutive terms, Netanyahu has led different coalitions. The current one, sworn in in late 2022, is considered the most far-right and brought forward a highly controversial proposal to reform the judiciary. The reform, which opponents called a coup, was meant to curb the influence of the judiciary and remove restraints from the government. This plunged the country into yet another round of protests that was abruptly brought to a halt by Hamas’ brutal attack.

The war has been going on for 17 months and has become Israel’s longest war. The brief lull in the demonstrations ended as frustration from the lengthy fighting, the increased burden on the reservist soldiers, the hostage crisis and the government’s refusal to establish an inquiry committee into what led to Hamas’ attack led people to the streets again.

Still, Netanyahu’s approval ratings began to recuperate.

“The parties in power are not paying a high electoral price due to the protests,” Dr. Or Tuttnauer, an expert on opposition parties from MZES, the University of Mannheim, told The Media Line. “The Likud maintains around 20% of public support consistently and the coalition partners represent ideological groups who see the government as a tool to realize their ambitions. With this in mind, the demonstrations only encourage them to avoid any possibility of moving the elections forward, with the hopes that whatever price they are paying, the electoral damage will diminish.”

The parliamentary opposition to Netanyahu is highly fragmented. It includes far-left elements, Arab parties and far-right elements. At its center are two parties that define themselves as centrists but have right-wing political and security views that make their distinction from Netanyahu’s Likud vague at best.

6 View gallery ( Photo: Tomer Applebaum )

“The fact that the opposition has no clear message or one single leader weakens its ability to succeed,” Freeman said. “Netanyahu still has a mandate to execute his policies.”

Reeling after Hamas’ attack, Israelis took a further turn to the right in what was already a clear slant of the public in recent decades.

“Most of the people are in the center, or perhaps even in the right,” said Tuttnauer. “So, in order to get more mandates, they have to talk like the government. But when faced with the choice of who to vote for and the options are similar, voters usually choose what is more authentic or for the party that is already in power.”

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The Likud party has maintained a steady lead in the polls in recent months, with the Netanyahu bloc projected to withhold its majority consistently if elections were held today. Netanyahu’s push to dismiss Bar, the head of the Shin Bet security agency and also Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara , has his opposition alleging he is trying to remove gatekeepers from their position and harm Israeli democracy.

The opposition believes Bar’s involvement in investigations into recent allegations of corruption by aides in Netanyahu’s office is what led to Netanyahu’s decision to sack him, while the Israeli premier claims he has long lost trust in the senior security official, who himself has taken responsibility for the organization’s failure to thwart Hamas’ surprise offensive.

“This offensive has been planned for weeks,” said Freeman. “If it was a political move, Bar would not have participated and resigned.”

6 View gallery Cabinet meeting, last month ( Photo: GPO )

The Cabinet approved Bar’s dismissal early Friday. The Shin Bet has played a critical role during the war on Hamas in Gaza. Bar appeared in a video released by the IDF; he is seen alongside the army chief-of-staff overseeing airstrikes on the Gaza Strip. He was instrumental in approving the plans to resume the war on Hamas.

Netanyahu’s opponents accuse him of prolonging the war and endangering the hostages to delay his trial and secure his political future. They frame every decision by Netanyahu as personally motivated to ensure his political survival and evade a guilty verdict in court.

The premier’s senior coalition partners threatened that if he did not resume the war effort, they would resign from the government, essentially toppling it and plunging the country into an election.

“If the war expands, this would be in favor of Netanyahu and give him more support due to an unstable security situation,” said Freeman. “If indeed the war will pressure Hamas into agreeing to release hostages and bring to a ceasefire, as Netanyahu promises, this will also weaken the opposition. As long as the opposition is fragmented, the public has no message to rally around.”

Early Thursday, the Israeli parliament approved the framework for the 2025 budget. The vote removed a key hurdle to the budget approval, granting Netanyahu quiet on the political front. The next election is scheduled for October 2026.

“I have no doubt that the right-wing will win this election,” Dayan told The Media Line. “The opposition is offering no product and no vision that will end this.”

“Netanyahu is under no political threat,” she concluded.

The story is written by Keren Setton and reprinted with permission from The Media Line .