Hamas attack shatters the illusion of security under Benjamin Netanyahu

A prime minister and a government that have defined themselves by security and the ruthless elimination of Israel’s enemies at home and abroad will now be marked by one of the blackest days and most catastrophic security failures in the nation’s history.

Barely plausible scenes of Hamas gunmen pouring through one of the world’s most heavily monitored and securitised borders, capturing soldiers at a military base, and gunning down civilians in undefended towns, as hours passed without a response from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, struck nerves deep in the national psyche. Nightmares from history suddenly alive in the supposed sanctuary of the Jewish people.

“Worst day in the history of the State of Israel – bar none,” said veteran Israeli commentator Chemi Shalev as casualty figures steadily ticked up, accompanied by lurid details and imagery, as confusion still swirled about what exactly happened – and how it had been allowed to happen.

Netanyahu once campaigned for election as Israel’s babysitter, reasoning with the electorate that while you might not like his gruff demeanour, conservatism, or corruption scandals, there is no one you would trust more with security in a country where nothing matters more. It was a bet he won, and continued to win, as he forged a political dynasty and returned to power last year for a fifth term.

The coalition government he leads has been his – and Israel’s – most extreme, fully aligned with the settler movement as it conquered Palestinian territory in the West Bank with encouragement and protection from the state, and sent religious fundamentalists to lay claim to the Al-Aqsa compound.

The emergence of new Palestinian militant factions in Nablus and Jenin over the past year was met with continuous escalation as the government sent shock troops on a series of bloody raids on the northern West Bank cities that killed leaders and civilians but only strengthened the collectives, while the official Palestinian leadership that has chosen cooperation with Israel and delivered nothing but self-enrichment stood humiliated in the eyes of its own people.

Lately, the prime minister has returned to his primary obsession: Iran, campaigning for international action against Tehran and ordering covert strikes against it, while barely acknowledging the existence of the other side of a 75-year conflict that has faded into the background for many Israelis – but not for Palestinians.

That complacency was reflected elsewhere in government, with reports of cabinet meetings this week that declared the Gaza front to be quiet.

Closer attention might have revealed the build-up of forces used in the unprecedented operation. Gaza is among the most heavily surveilled territories in the world but the massing of rockets, drones, and bespoke vehicles to send militants over the fence somehow went unseen. Military checkpoints and bases around the besieged enclave were undermanned and taken by surprise.

As Israel embarks on another bombing campaign of the strip – a convention routine enough to earn the descriptor “mowing the lawn” – with Netanyahu again promising a decisive blow against the enemy and the re-establishment of deterrence, his F-16s can only deliver revenge and more material for Hamas recruiters.

The security Netanyahu promised to Israelis has been exposed as a lie. One consequence is likely to be the beginning of the end of the career of one of the 20th century’s great political survivors.

A more meaningful outcome would be if this horror exposed the fiction that a generations-long conflict that still destroys and ends lives on a daily basis can be managed rather than resolved.