Menachem Klein, senior lecturer at Bar-Ilan University in Israel, said Israel’s government and its military are still hoping for a victory in Gaza, but they are unable to achieve it.

“Israel – especially the army and the government – is looking for the victory. And they cannot achieve it,” Klein told Al Jazeera.

“There is a huge gap between the war goals that Israel put forward and stuck to all along the war, and the agreement reached with Hamas,” Klein said.

“Israel is not winning the war and is trying to find, you know, some achievements – according to Israeli definitions, of course – during the minutes, the last days of this round of the war. That’s it. Israel is frustrated,” he said.

Klein said how right-wing activists have hung banners in Jerusalem that declare “this is not victory” – a message to Netanyahu and his declarations over the past 15 months of war on Gaza that “we will not stop till victory.”