When then-U.S. President-elect Donald Trump warned last December that there would be “ALL HELL TO PAY” if the Israeli hostages held by Hamas weren’t released by Inauguration Day, the words appeared to be directed at the militant group. But now that the cease-fire and hostage deal is signed and put into motion, it’s Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who is feeling the heat.

The agreement has been lauded around the world, celebrated in Gaza, and favored by a majority of Israelis. But it threatens to bring down Netanyahu’s government, which has been held together by an open-ended war in Gaza and the promise of “total victory.”

When then-U.S. President-elect Donald Trump warned last December that there would be “ALL HELL TO PAY” if the Israeli hostages held by Hamas weren’t released by Inauguration Day, the words appeared to be directed at the militant group. But now that the cease-fire and hostage deal is signed and put into motion, it’s Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who is feeling the heat.

The agreement has been lauded around the world, celebrated in Gaza, and favored by a majority of Israelis. But it threatens to bring down Netanyahu’s government, which has been held together by an open-ended war in Gaza and the promise of “total victory.”

A day after the Israeli cabinet approved the deal, Itamar Ben-Gvir, national security minister and head of the far-right Otzma Yehudit party, quit the government. The six Knesset seats his party controls cut the coalition’s majority in the 120-member parliament to just 61 or possibly 62. The other far-right leader, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, was more coy: He said he would stay on, but only if Israel resumed its Gaza onslaught in another six weeks, after the first part of the three-phase deal. If Smotrich does eventually leave with his seven Knesset seats, the coalition will have lost its majority.

If it were purely a matter of domestic political calculations, Netanyahu would never have agreed to the cease-fire at all, in all likelihood. Over the last year, he rejected proposals made by then-U.S. President Joe Biden that were not very different from the one he recently agreed to. Netanyahu did so out of fear that an agreement would cause Smotrich and Ben-Gvir to bolt.

The difference this time is that Trump has entered the picture and will be in it for the next four years. Netanyahu fears offending Trump, who is famously vengeful. No less important, he wants the U.S. president on board for his bigger agenda, namely a showdown with Iran over its nuclear ambitions and a historic move to establish diplomatic relations with Saudi Arabia.

The question is whether domestic political considerations will return to the fore and Netanyahu backtracks on the cease-fire commitment he made to Trump. Netanyahu has signaled as much in the few public statements he has made on the deal, calling the first phase a “temporary ceasefire” and vowing that Israel would not rest until “all of its war goals are completed.” The latter includes the elimination of Hamas, which honoring the cease-fire naturally precludes. He has reportedly told Smotrich he will have no reason to step down at the end of first phase.

No one knows for sure if Netanyahu aims to wiggle out of the agreement; in fact, the prime minister himself may not know. When his back is against the wall, as it was in the days leading up to the cease-fire deal, Netanyahu traditionally plays for time and tells everyone involved what they want to hear with little regard for truth or consistency.

That the prime minister has found himself between the pincers of Trump and the far right is largely his own fault. Throughout the war, he assured the Israeli public that he would fight until “total victory,” which, among other things, meant the elimination of Hamas and rescuing the hostages through military force rather than a deal. Most Israelis stopped believing the message long ago, but the prime minister’s core constituency on the right and far right bought it. Whether Smotrich and Ben-Gvir also believed Netanyahu wasn’t relevant—the threat they would leave the coalition was enough to keep the prime minister in line.

Why is continuing the war so important for them? The far right shares Netanyahu’s fear that the government will be called to account when the war ends through a state commission of inquiry to probe the failures that allowed Hamas to attack Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and/or by calls for early elections it is likely to lose. But the far right has special reasons of its own. Many Ben-Gvir supporters have reveled in the violence of war, revenge, and victory. For a broad segment of the extreme right, the war is the means to realize the dream of reversing Israel’s 2005 withdrawal from Gaza and resettling the enclave.

Israelis on the right were confident that with Trump in the White House, Israel would be able to pursue their wish list—annexation of the West Bank, a renewed assault on judicial independence, an attack on Iranian nuclear facilities, and an ongoing assault on Gaza. The cease-fire agreement has, for now at least,  laid the last item on the list to rest, leaving the right dumbfounded. Many are clinging to the hope that it is some kind of stunt that will pave the way for Israel to resume its Gaza offensive, this time with none of the Biden-era restrictions.

In fact, many in Trump’s circle have given the right some cause for hope. In a confirmation hearing, Secretary of Defense nominee Pete Hegseth said, “I support Israel destroying and killing every last member of Hamas.” National Security Advisor Mike Waltz echoed that in a recent podcast, asserting that  Hamas “has to be destroyed to the point that it cannot reconstitute.” But that may just be the kind of public sloganeering that comes as the key players in the new administration vie to set future policy lines. The signals coming from Trump himself and his Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, who will be overseeing the truce, indicate that they mean to see the cease-fire agreement through.

Netanyahu would therefore be taking a serious risk if he plays the same kind of games with Trump as he did with the Biden administration, when he sabotaged cease-fire negotiations and crossed Washington’s red lines on humanitarian issues. Hamas may yet come to Netanyahu’s rescue by violating the cease-fire terms or taking an especially tough stance in the cease-fire’s second phase, but the blame would have to fall squarely on Hamas, and that may not happen.

Netanyahu should be able to hang on for the six weeks of the ceasefire’s first phase and perhaps a little longer if the second phase’s negotiations drag on. Ben-Gvir promised that he would have no hand in bringing down the government and that if Israel went back to war at the end of the first phase, he would be happy to rejoin it. Netanyahu is angling to keep his party’s cabinet seats open and available for that. The opposition—comprising a disparate handful of center and left-wing parties, as well as three Arab-dominated factions, and poorly led—is unlike to exploit Netanyahu’s woes. By March 2 or not long thereafter, the coalition could be back intact and fighting the war everyone thought had come to an end.

Or not—if the Trump administration insists that Netanyahu honor the cease-fire, Ben-Gvir will stay out and Smotrich will join him. Meanwhile, Netanyahu’s government has been struggling to devise legislation on drafting the ultra-Orthodox (haredi) for military service. The coalition’s ultra-Orthodox partners are demanding a law that would officially exempt their followers, but the de facto exemption they have long enjoyed is opposed by the vast majority of the public, including many of the government’s core supporters. Netanyahu has been struggling with this issue for months, but he is now down to a narrow 62-seat majority and time is running out: The haredi parties are threatening to not back the 2025 budget, and if the government fails to win Knesset approval for the budget by the end of March, it will be dissolved.

Netanyahu’s political survival skills are renowned, but this time he is boxed in tightly by Trump, the far right, and the haredim. March will be an interesting month.