On the afternoon of July 15, the cease-fire had definitively collapsed and an endless barrage of Hamas rockets rained down across the length and breadth of Israel. The prime minister’s office was inundated with reports of Likud ministers and Knesset members alike publicly denouncing the prime minister’s decision to accept the cease-fire.
Deputy Defense Minister Danny Danon was running from one media outlet to the next, arguing that the prime minister was controlled by the left, that he was abandoning the residents of the south and that his policies were anemic. Danon may have been the most outspoken and uninhibited, but he was hardly the only one to complain. Interior Minister Gideon Saar demanded that Netanyahu convene the entire government to debate the cease-fire, while Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz argued that the cease-fire only benefited Hamas, saying, “The missile threat has not been removed, and the leadership of the organization has not been eliminated.”