"We are in the middle of the war," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement today. "We are on the cusp of total victory."

• "We are ready for a deal but not for capitulation to Hamas' extreme demands."

🖼️ The big picture: Six months to the day after Hamas' Oct. 7 terrorist attack on Israel, the war in Gaza appears to be helping the beleaguered Netanyahu stay in power, Axios' Barak Ravid writes.

• There's no ceasefire in sight, despite increasing calls for one from U.S. officials and many others worldwide. Negotiations for the 134 hostages held by Hamas continue off and on. But no deal is imminent.

Israel is conducting sporadic raids and airstrikes, including the one that killed seven World Central Kitchen workers. But there are no major military operations going on in Gaza.

• Netanyahu has vowed to attack the city of Rafah to root out Hamas militants — but he's under increasing pressure not to do so.

The intrigue: Many U.S. and Israeli officials are convinced that although the deeply unpopular Netanyahu seems boxed in, he might think a dragged-out war increases his chances of staying in power.

• The officials interpret Netanyahu's actions this way: As long as a war is going on, elections that could oust him are less likely.
• Most Israelis want him to resign. But there's no immediate path for new elections in Israel.

Zoom in: Israeli defense officials say their military has significantly decreased its footprint in Gaza in the last two months.

• The Israeli Defense Forces now has only one brigade in Gaza (roughly 4,000 troops), compared to the three divisions (roughly 30,000 troops) it had there in January.
• At the same time, fighting between Israel and Hezbollah on the Lebanese border has been intensifying. There's much more fighting there than in Gaza, but Netanyahu doesn't call it a war.

Zoom out: Shortly after Oct. 7, Netanyahu laid out three objectives of Israel's response: Eliminate the terror threat against Israel from Gaza, destroy Hamas' military and governance capabilities there, and free the hostages.

• After six months of fighting, the first goal appears to have been achieved. Hamas' ability to conduct a significant attack against Israel in the foreseeable future is extremely low.

But most Israelis — 61% in a recent Channel 13 poll — don't think the war will end with Hamas' defeat.

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Israel's bombardment of Gaza in the past six months has flattened buildings, decimated farmland, and destroyed critical infrastructure, Axios' Will Chase and Alison Snyder write.

• Rebuilding could take decades.

More than 50% of buildings and roughly half of tree crops have been damaged or destroyed, according to analyses of satellite data.

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BEIJING — There's a rising, worldwide backlash against cheap Chinese-made green tech that other countries say are warping global prices.

• What we're watching: Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen — who is on a visit to China — has a growing set of allies working to slow the flow of products coming from the country's massively subsidized factory sector, like electric vehicles and solar panels, Axios' Courtenay Brown reports.

⚡ State of play: There's been a stunning trend of nations weighing punitive measures against China-manufactured green technology.

• Europe launched an anti-subsidy investigation into electric vehicles from China at the end of last year — with possible tariffs to follow.
• The U.K. last month warned about China-made EVs, acknowledging the possibility of trade sanctions on imports.
• Officials in Brazil allege dumping tactics, with recent probes into the flow of low-price imports of industrial materials.

Yellen warned this week that U.S. officials "won't rule out" taking steps to guard the clean energy sector that the U.S. government has poured billions into nurturing.

• The big unknown is how Beijing might retaliate against these more protectionist policies.

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Former President Trump's "Inaugural Leadership Dinner" in Palm Beach raised over $50.5 million, "smashing every fundraising record in history for a Republican or Democrat," the RNC announced Saturday.

• President Biden held that record for eight days, after raising $26 million at a celeb-studded Radio City Musical Hall event with his two predecessors on March 29.

Why it matters: Many major Republican donors treated the Trump event as the kickoff for the general election.

Trump's dinner, at the home of hedge-fund billionaire John Paulson, invited contributions of $250,000 to $824,600 — the legal max.

• Trump told reporters as he arrived with his wife, Melania Trump (photo above): "This has been some incredible evening before it even starts because people — they wanted to contribute to a cause of making America great again, and that's what's happened."

TikTok owner ByteDance also quietly operates one of the most popular education apps on the market: generative AI-powered Gauth, a homework aid with millions of downloads.

• Why it matters: TikTok's future in the U.S. is uncertain as Congress takes aim at its China-based owner. But Gauth has flown comparatively under the radar despite having a presumably similar, young user base, Axios' April Rubin reports.

The big picture: ByteDance, the world's most valuable venture capital-backed startup, has earned the nickname "app factory."

👀 Zoom in: Gauth was within the top 3 free education applications this week in Apple's App Store and the Google Play store. The app says it has 200 million global users, per Forbes.

• In its privacy policy, Gauth says it collects registration information, user content, such as photos and comments, chats, contacts and purchase information. It also has access to users' location.

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Iowa and South Carolina will face off in the women's NCAA championship game in Cleveland this afternoon. UConn and Purdue will play for the men's title tomorrow night in Glendale, Ariz.

• All four teams to reach the final games are No. 1 seeds.

👀 Caitlin Clark effect: The Final Four women's matchup between Iowa and UConn on Friday, which featured superstars Caitlin Clark and Paige Bueckers, had 14.2 million viewers on ESPN.

• It was the most-viewed women's college hoops game on record and ESPN's largest audience for any basketball broadcast — beating Game 7 of the 2018 Eastern Conference finals between Cleveland and Boston, which had 13.5 million viewers, per AP.

📺 Watch Iowa face South Carolina at 3 p.m. ET on ABC. Catch UConn and Purdue tomorrow at 9:20 p.m. ET on TBS, TNT or truTV.

People traveling toward Austin brace for delays and congestion. The Texas capital — along with Dallas, Indianapolis, Cleveland and others — is one of the big cities in the path of totality for Monday's social eclipse.

• Go deeper: Hospitals brace for eclipse mania.

"Four decades after their heyday, Journey still plays to packed arenas around the world," CNN's Brandon Griggs writes.

• The classic rock band is wrapping up a 50th anniversary tour that hit Europe, Asia and Australia and gearing up to do a series of stadium shows in America this summer with Def Leppard.

The credit for Journey's enduring popularity largely goes to one song, Griggs notes: their smash hit, "Don't Stop Believin'."

• The song came out in 1981. It surged to the top of the charts after the 2005 Chicago White Sox made it their theme song for their championship run. "The Sopranos" played it almost in its entirety during the show's iconic final scene in 2007.