Two roads diverged for Israel’s security cabinet in a Sunday night meeting about Gaza, and since they could not travel both routes, the cabinet decided not to make a decision.

The Security Cabinet met to discuss Israel’s next steps in Gaza after 633 days of war: ceasefire or escalation. 

Some in the IDF high brass argued that the Gaza war’s objectives have been met — noting that the army had destroyed Hamas’ military infrastructure, killed nearly all of the senior Hamas commanders on its target list, dismantled tunnels, seized 60% of Gaza, blocked key smuggling routes — leaving Hamas weaker than it has been since its 2007 takeover of Gaza. They argued that now is the time to pursue an exit strategy, according to military analyst Amir Bohbot.

If there is no ceasefire, the IDF plans to continue its current operation in Gaza, calling up tens of thousands of IDF reservists and moving to conquer 80% of the territory. Officers in the cabinet meeting reportedly warned that doing so could bring about a large number of casualties, including some of the hostages. In the past week, the army has suffered near-daily losses of soldiers in Gaza. 

On Monday, the IDF called on the residents of several neighborhoods in northern Gaza to evacuate, warning that military operations in their areas would escalate and intensify.

President Donald Trump’s choice is clear: “MAKE THE DEAL IN GAZA. GET THE HOSTAGES BACK!!!” he wrote on Truth Social on Sunday. Two days earlier, he said there could be a ceasefire within a week.

What a ceasefire would mean is unclear. The parties could agree to a temporary ceasefire, which Israelis have called the “Witkoff outline,” after Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff. Such a ceasefire would last 60 days, with the release of half of the remaining 50 hostages, 21 of whom are thought to be alive, in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, including terrorists, and increased humanitarian aid flow into Gaza.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu denied a report last week that he and Trump discussed a sweeping plan to end the Gaza war and expand the Abraham Accords, but a source with knowledge of the matter told Jewish Insider on Monday that much of the details are, in fact, currently in talks, even if they may still be far from fruition. 

Among the elements under discussion are the exile of remaining Hamas leaders from Gaza, and for Israeli troops to remain along Gaza’s perimeter — the Philadelphi Corridor along the Gaza-Egypt border is still under debate — and for the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Saudi Arabia to take a central role in Gaza’s administration. In addition, there have been talks about normalization between Israel and Syria.

Netanyahu’s rush to deny the original report — which included Israeli acknowledgment of a future Palestinian state — underscores the degree to which he believes such a move would be politically toxic and could threaten to break up his governing coalition.

Of course, the U.S. and Israel can make plans, but Hamas has ideas of its own. Negotiators have on multiple occasions leaked the details of past ceasefire proposals, only for Hamas to reject the deals on the table. As Michael Milshtein, an expert on Palestinian affairs at Tel Aviv University, told Israel’s Kan Radio on Monday morning, “even after Iran blew up, Hamas is sticking to the same stance … [that] the IDF must fully withdraw” from Gaza.

More recently, Trump has found a different culprit for the lack of a ceasefire: the Israeli judiciary. For the second time in recent days, the president took to his social media network to lament that “it is terrible what they are doing in Israel to Bibi Netanyahu … How is it possible that the Prime Minister of Israel can be forced to sit in a Courtroom all day long, over NOTHING  (Cigars, Bugs Bunny Doll, etc.). It is a POLITICAL WITCH HUNT, very similar to the Witch Hunt that I was forced to endure. This travesty of ‘Justice’ will interfere with both Iran and Hamas negotiations.”

One part of Trump’s Truth Social post raised alarm bells in the Israeli commentariat, with some interpreting the president’s words as a threat: “The United States of America spends Billions of Dollar a year, far more than on any other Nation, protecting and supporting Israel. We are not going to stand for this,” he wrote. “This greatly tarnishes our Victory [in Iran].”

The judge in Netanyahu’s trial was not convinced by Trump’s first post on social media, nor by a confidential letter from Netanyahu saying that there are urgent security matters requiring the postponement of the prime minister’s planned cross-examination this week. However, when the head of the Mossad and the head of IDF intelligence showed up at the courthouse hours after Trump’s second post on Sunday, Netanyahu received the deferral that both he and Trump wanted.

Asked whether Netanyahu’s trial is holding up a possible ceasefire in Gaza, Amichai Cohen, head of the Israel Democracy Institute’s Program on National Security and the Law, told JI that “it’s common sense that if critical things are happening in the war in Gaza, there won’t be proceedings. You don’t need the [resident of the United States for that to happen; the Israeli system knows how to handle it.” 

Marc Zell, an international lawyer who is the chairman of Republicans Overseas Israel and a frequent defender of Trump in Israeli media, took issue with the interpretation that Trump is tying the issue of the hostages and the war in Gaza with to the trial, beyond the fact that “President Trump is quite understandably concerned that the prime minister is being distracted by what he considers silly political proceedings, which he understands because Trump himself was the object of a similar campaign … Trump is highly motivated to get this thing done and take advantage of what could be a sea change in the politics of the Middle East.”

Cohen and Zell were both skeptical that Trump’s entreaties would have much of an impact on Netanyahu’s case. 

Cohen said that Trump may be trying to get a plea deal for Netanyahu. However, Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara, whom Netanyahu’s cabinet ministers are currently trying to fire, would have to sign off on it. “I don’t think Trump would influence her,” Cohen said.

However, Trump could pressure Israeli President Isaac Herzog to pardon Netanyahu, which Cohen said was “the only place where politics could play a role. However, he added, “according to past rulings by the High Court, a pardon can only apply to someone who admitted wrong doing” — which Netanyahu has not done.

Zell called the proceedings against Netanyahu “specious,” but defended the independence of Israel’s judiciary. He told JI that Trump’s attempted intervention is “a direct affront to [Israel’s] sovereignty” and that “this is not the business of the U.S.; it’s the business of the State of Israel.”

Of Netanyahu supporters who cheered Trump’s posts, he said: “If we’re inviting a foreign state to interfere in our own proceedings, however misguided they may be … it opens the door to subsequent administrations. This is what the Biden administration did; it tried to interfere in our political processes and stop judicial reform.”