Israel, following 22 months of war in Gaza, is at a crossroads and Prime Minister Netanayhu’s top security advisers are preparing their public for a final assault on Hamas, which could endanger the remaining living hostages.

Mr. Netanayhu gathered together his top strategic adviser, Ron Dermer, the defense minister, Israel Katz, and the Israel Defense Force’s chief of staff, Lieutenant General Eyal Zamir, for a three-hour “brainstorm” on Tuesday. According to a laconic statement that was released at the end of the meeting, the IDF will implement any cabinet decision regarding Gaza. The cabinet is reportedly scheduled to decide the next course of action on Thursday. 

Hamas’s weekend release of shocking videos of two emaciated Israeli hostages apparently nearing death is forcing the Israeli leadership to make tough decisions. “Hamas made a mistake,” the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs’s Jonathan Dahoah Halevi tells the Sun. “They hoped to increase the Israeli public’s pressure on the government to end the war. Instead they are forcing the government to escalate in Gaza.”

The Hamas videos are “an astoundingly evil reminder of who they are,” the Department of State spokeswoman, Tammy Bruce, said Tuesday. “In the midst of the conversation around the world for them to feel comfortable, then putting on full display their barbarity and their inhumanity, tells you that they seem to feel pretty comfortable at the moment.”

Washington, though, is being cautious in reacting to reports of Israel’s next moves in Gaza. “We are not in the business of interpreting statements from foreign governments when and if they’re made,” Ms. Bruce said. “We remain focused on freeing the hostages, including the remains of two Americans, and ensuring that Hamas never rules Gaza again.”  

Mr. Netanyahu also often articulates these goals. Yet, are they compatible?

Israel has few choices remaining other than entering Gaza areas that it had avoided in the past, fearing the hostages would be harmed, Mr. Halevi, a former military intelligence official, says. In the past it constantly shied from taking decisive steps to completely defeat the enemy. “To win the war, all that Hamas needs to do is survive,” he says. “If that happens, the ramifications will be felt far beyond Gaza, across the Mideast and beyond. They will haunt Israel for decades to come.”  

The government therefore is signaling a major escalation. General Zamir presented “options for continuing the campaign in Gaza,” the prime minister’s office said following the Tuesday meeting. “The IDF is prepared to implement any decision made” by the cabinet.”

That formulation seemed designed to allay concerns over headlines from a day earlier, which quoted a senior official close to Mr. Netanyahu in suggesting that General Zamir could “resign” if he didn’t like the cabinet’s decision. 

General Zamir reportedly opposes attacks on areas where hostages are known to be held, which would risk their lives. Yet the political firestorm over the IDF chief, who only assumed his role at the beginning of the year, might have been overblown. Reports that he would resign if ordered to enter Gaza city and Hamas-infested central Gaza towns are unconfirmed and might be influenced by political biases of the leakers.

The IDF remains the only body that most Israelis support. Its commander wisely chose to keep mum about reports that he objects to a full occupation. Public statements from Mr. Netanyahu’s right-wing partners aside, what “full occupation” actually means is yet to be fleshed out by the cabinet. 

“I doubt that the cabinet will take any decision that would lead to killing of the hostages,” a former IDF navy commander, Vice Admiral Eliezer Marom, told Kann Radio. “There are a lot of variations between complete Gaza occupation and doing nothing.” The troops in Gaza, he adds, are fighting to save the hostages. 

Cabinet ministers, though, acknowledge that escalation in Gaza could endanger the living hostages. “We have no other choice, but to defeat Hamas,” the agricultural minister, Miki Zohar, a Likud member, told N-12 television. “Whoever thinks that in reaction to these videos we must surrender to Hamas, is missing the larger strategic picture. And anyone telling you that our next move would not endanger the lives of hostages is lying.”

In widespread gatherings across Israel, anti-government protesters are advocating a deal with Hamas that would end the war and free the hostages. But would such a deal leave Hamas intact and allow it to repeat its October 7, 2023, assault?

President Trump is seeking new ideas for “a durable peace, not this vicious circle of it happening every several times during each generation, as though this was some new normal,” Ms. Bruce said.  

Israel is facing “a very tough choice,” Mr. Halevi says. “It’s the classic ‘hijacked plane’ dilemma: Do you go full force for the rescue and risk harming the passengers, or do you pay whatever ransom the hijackers demand? I don’t envy the decision makers.”