Consider the possibility that, the moment the hostages are safely back in Israel, some pretext is found to resume the war, because a big part of Bibi's base wants Gaza and the West Bank annexed. Trump didn't get the Nobel, so he won't care. And they will both blame the Pals.

Oh, that's certainly a possibility. But a "pretext" isn't as effective as 251 Israeli hostages. A big part of Netanyahu's base wants Gaza, but the electorate outside his base is generally tired of war, tired of their soldiers being in harm's way, and tired of Israel's precipitous collapse in world opinion. And not much interested in annexing Gaza. Netanyahu will find it much, much harder to march off to war in Gaza than he did two years ago. The hostages weren't Netanyahu's one vulnerability - they were the thing that kept the domestic electorate 100% agreed on at least one goal. They differed on how to get that goal, but they were unified around the idea that Israel had to get the hostages back, whether by force or bargain. And certainly some of the folks who supported the war did so because they felt the hostages were worth fighting to get back....but not that the ruins of Gaza are worth annexing.

Israel will celebrate the return of the hostages, but once the focus turns away from getting them back and more towards the security failures of 10/7 and what future Israeli policy should look like, Netanyahu's going to be on much weaker footing. Hamas can always be relied on to do the wrong thing, and no doubt they will offer something that might re-engage hostilities - but it will be much, much harder for Netanyahu to rally a war-weary Israel into a second invasion of Gaza.

Still possible, to be sure. But I think there's now a good chance that most of Israel is perfectly happy to let Gaza be occupied by Trump's "Board of Peace" rather than Israeli troops - or at least enough that Netanyahu can't get the war restarted.