After the announcement of a ceasefire between Israel and Iran, Israeli officials spent Tuesday trying to make sense of their country’s strategic position and what it means for the war in Gaza.
There was an overwhelming sense that Israel, with American help, achieved remarkable victories against its archenemy during 12 days of fighting, which appear to have massively degraded Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile programmes, widely viewed in Israel as an existential threat.
If the ceasefire holds, attention is likely to turn inward to the many political dilemmas that Israel faced before the war in Iran largely united it – in particular what should happen with the Gaza war. Although out of the headlines, there was no let-up in Israel’s bloody campaign in the strip.
Thirty-two people were killed in Gaza on Tuesday morning while waiting for aid, Palestinian media reported, the latest in a series of deaths in recent weeks among homeless and hungry Gazans.
The overall Palestinian toll from the war rose to 56,077 dead and 131,848 wounded, including 516 deaths and 3,799 injuries related to aid distribution.
Within hours of the announcement of Israel accepting the US ceasefire proposal, many politicians on the left and centre called for Israel to use the moment to also end the war in the strip.
Opposition leader Yair Lapid said it was time for Israel to “start rebuilding”, return hostages and end fighting. The Democrats leader said it “is the time to complete the mission: return all the hostages, end the war in Gaza and stop once and for all the coup that threatens to make Israel weak, divided and vulnerable,” referring to the divisive policy agenda of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right coalition.
A senior figure in Mr Netanyahu's Likud party also suggested the ceasefire with Iran could bring a rapid peace deal in Gaza.
“I believe it's the time to close the Gaza [conflict]. I believe it will be now much easier because Hamas doesn't have any more support in Iran,” Michael Kleiner, president of the supreme court of the Likud party, told the BBC.
He added that an agreement could be reached “very quickly” with the Americans, Qataris and Egypt to demilitarise Gaza and put in an interim force to run it until there are elections.
Mr Kleiner welcomed the ceasefire, saying it was good that civilians in Israel and Iran would no longer be killed. “We basically reached our goal, and we had no reason to continue,” he added.
A forum representing the families of the majority of Israeli hostages warned Israel was about to conclude a “grave diplomatic failure” by not including the return of captives held in Gaza in the ceasefire deal. Iran, a backer of Hamas, is viewed by many in Israel as having pivotal leverage over the group.
“We call on the government to hold snap talks that will lead to the return of all the hostages and an end to the war. Those [who] can bring about a ceasefire with Iran can also end the war in Gaza,” a statement from the forum said.
“After 12 days and nights in which the Israeli people could not sleep because of Iran, we can finally go back to not sleeping because of the hostages,” it added.
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who along with political allies on the far-right has consistently maintained that defeating Hamas should be Israel’s priority in the Gaza war, said that after removing the “immediate existential threat” Iran posed, the focus should be turning “with all our strength to Gaza [to] destroy Hamas and return our hostages and to ensure, with God’s help, many years of security and growth from strength for the people of Israel”.
Not all politicians were satisfied with the ceasefire with Iran. Avigdor Liberman, a hawk and former minister, warned that the world was going “into difficult and tedious negotiations, with the ayatollah regime having no intention of giving up – not on uranium enrichment on Iranian soil, not on the production and equipping of ballistic missiles, nor on supporting and financing terrorism in the region and around the world”.
“A ceasefire without a clear and unambiguous agreement will certainly lead us to another war in two or three years, and under much worse conditions,” Mr Liberman added.
