The Knesset member Idit Silman announced on Sunday that she had no intention of returning to her place in the government, thus leaving the legislature split evenly between those who are part of the ruling coalition—led by Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and Foreign Minister Yair Lapid—and those who are in the opposition. After seeking to explain the motivations behind Silman’s defection, Haviv Rettig Gur details the likely consequences:

The political system has entered—or re-entered—a period of uncertainty. But one thing is not uncertain. The current government, if it survives, will be unable to muster parliamentary majorities for any significant initiative. Reforms or major budgetary decisions are all frozen now. The paralysis of 2019-2021 is back.

Perhaps it was inevitable. . . . But there are real costs to that paralysis. . . . A major, urgently needed billion-shekel package of financial aid for small businesses hurt by pandemic closures hangs in the legislative balance, as does a new pension framework for the army, a minimum-wage increase, and tax breaks for working parents. The largest-ever transportation spending bill, a dramatic upgrade to the country’s rail networks, now sits on the Knesset docket waiting to move forward. A revised ḥaredi draft bill that would release more young ḥaredi men from their study obligations and allow them to join the workforce at a younger age will be frozen.

So it goes for a dozen more major initiatives, most of them supported as wholeheartedly by Likud as by Labor and [the hard-left] Meretz, but now headed for a political deep freeze.

Politics isn’t a sport. . . . It is, first and foremost, the management of the people’s business—and that business will once again not get done.

Ron Ben-Yishai, reporting from a visit to IDF forces in the Gaza Strip, analyzes the state of the fighting, and “the persistent challenge of eradicating an entrenched enemy in a complex urban terrain.”

Hamas, sensing the war’s end, is mounting a final effort to inflict casualties. The IDF now controls 65 percent of Gaza’s territory operationally, with observation, fire dominance, and relative freedom of movement, alongside systematic tunnel destruction. . . . Major P, a reserve company commander, says, “It’s frustrating to hear at home that we’re stagnating. The public doesn’t get that if we stop, Hamas will recover.”

Senior IDF officers cite two reasons for the slow progress: meticulous care to protect hostages, requiring cautious movement and constant intelligence gathering, and avoiding heavy losses, with 22 soldiers killed since June.

Two-and-a-half of Hamas’s five brigades have been dismantled, yet a new hostage deal and IDF withdrawal could allow Hamas to regroup. . . . Hamas is at its lowest military and governing point since its founding, reduced to a fragmented guerrilla force. Yet, without complete disarmament and infrastructure destruction, it could resurge as a threat in years.

At the same time, Ben-Yishai observes, not everything hangs on the IDF:

According to the Southern Command chief Major General Yaron Finkelman, the IDF is close to completing its objectives. In classical military terms, “defeat” means the enemy surrenders—but with a jihadist organization, the benchmark is its ability to operate against Israel.

Despite [the IDF’s] battlefield successes, the broader strategic outcome—especially regarding the hostages—now hinges on decisions from the political leadership. “We’ve done our part,” said a senior officer. “We’ve reached a crossroads where the government must decide where it wants to go—both on the hostage issue and on Gaza’s future.”