Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu continues to maintain a hardline stance, actively projecting an image as a wartime leader ahead of Israel’s upcoming national elections on October 27 .

 

Israel has stepped up strikes on Gaza and key border crossings remain tightly restricted or closed while Netanyahu threatens for more attacks and further assassinations seeking to create a tough image ahead of the elections .

 

In the two-thirds of Gaza now under direct Israeli control, the Israeli army has wiped out virtually all traces of Palestinian life, systematically razing thousands of structures , flattening entire neighborhoods and agricultural lands, while erecting military bases and other permanent infrastructure .

 

Palestinians in the Gaza Strip continue to face deadly attacks by the Israeli forces on an almost daily basis despite the theoretical " ceasefire ".

 

More than 1,481 Palestinians have been killed and 5,254 wounded since the ceasefire took effect in October, 2025.

 

The figures bring the overall Palestinian death toll since the start of Israel's war on Gaza on 7 October 2023 to 74,250 with 175,278 people wounded, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health.

 

President Isaac Herzog warned of dangerous disputes and deep internal division ahead ofIsrael’s upcoming Oct. 27 Knesset election.

 

“We must also confront what is happening to us inside our own home,” Herzog said.

 

“In these days, in the midst of the election campaign, we must look at and heed the flashing warning lights — those pointing to dangerous disputes and deep division,” he added.

 

The election will be Israel’s first general vote since the Gaza war.

 

Netanyahu has headed the current government since late 2022, which has been described as the most right-wing in Israel’s history. He is also standing trial domestically on corruption charges that could carry prison sentences if convicted and has been wanted by the International Court of Justice since 2024 for war crimes in Gaza.

 

“We still have tasks ahead of us, and we are determined to complete them,” Netanyahu said , vowing that Hamas will not be allowed to govern Gaza.

 

“There will be no Hamas rule in Gaza” , he said and stated that Israeli forces will continue military operations to completely eliminate remaining threats.

 

Netanyahu has consistently pushed back against implementing full drawdowns or moving past the current fragile ceasefire.

 

He previously rejected elements of a US -backed peace plan , stating that the IDF will not withdraw from its current lines until Hamas is entirely disarmed.

 

Netanyahu's Likud party is facing growing competition from opposition parties and the narrow margins have made security a central issue in the emerging campaign, with Netanyahu seeking to reinforce his credentials among right-wing voters by presenting himself as the leader best positioned to confront what he claims are threats facing Israel.

 

The Israeli Prime Minister understands the importance of security issues in shaping Israeli voters' choices and is therefore seeking to keep the war and Gaza high on the political agenda.

 

His continued military operations reinforce his political narrative , allow him to portray himself as a leader capable of managing the war , capable of confronting security threats and protecting Israel while

 

the close polling makes it particularly difficult for him to make major concessions over Gaza or significantly reduce military operations.

 

Critics , politicians , and regional experts argue that any significant scaling back of operations or concessions regarding the Gaza issue could be exploited by his opponents to accuse him of weakness thus

 

Netanyahu’s strategy aims to overshadow intense domestic scrutiny regarding his intelligence failures leading up to October 7, and to frame himself as Israel’s sole protector for his reelection campaign.

 

On his part, Jared Kushner, the US president’s son-in-law and point person for the Middle East, promised in January this year that restoration of core services and infrastructure—including water and sewage systems, electricity networks, hospitals, and bakeries—would begin within 100 days.

 

Nine months has passed , Gaza till date has seen no reconstruction, no restoration of basic services, or even an end to daily violence. Instead, the vast majority of its inhabitants remain packed into squalid and sprawling tent cities along a tiny—and ever-shrinking—strip of coastline, plagued by disease and rodent infestations, enduring extreme shortages of food, medicine, clean water, and access to basic sanitation.

 

It is hard to overstate the scale of death, destruction, and suffering inflicted on Gaza and its roughly 2.2 million inhabitants over the past three years and till date the humanitarian situation remains catastrophic—and it is not sustainable.

 

Kushner has also blamed Israel’s “crazy elections” this month, which he says have made the Netanyahu government “a little irrational” in regard to Gaza.

 

Keeping Gaza in a kind of political, military, and humanitarian limbo—with neither a real cease-fire nor a return to full-scale war, limited short-term relief but no long-term reconstruction, and a population consumed with the imperatives of survival but lacking any real hope for the future—serves the broader vision harbored by many Israeli hard-liners: making Gaza uninhabitable to the point that its residents are forced to leave

 

For Netanyahu, ongoing violence at this level—just enough to prevent Gaza’s meaningful recovery and reconstruction but not enough to trigger a major international outcry—has become an end unto itself.

 

International outrage over the carnage in Gaza, has largely subsided, with many countries preferring a failing peace process to none at all.

 

Netanyahu, who thinks that keeping Israel on a constant war footing will allow him to retain power, may welcome the opportunity to wage what is in effect a forever war in Gaza.