In his more than three decades in politics, Benjamin Netanyahu has accrued almost as many nicknames as he has election wins.

There’s “The Magician” for his uncanny ability to grab victory from the jaws of defeat. “King Bibi” for staying atop Israeli politics longer than anyone else. And, universally, though not necessarily affectionately: plain old “Bibi”. But there is another one he revelled in, and which now appears in tatters: “Mr Security.” How did it all go so wrong?

It remains unclear as to how more than 1,000 Hamas militants managed to take Israel by such devastatingly deadly surprise, murdering – as President Isaac Herzog wrote – more Jews in one day than at any time since the Holocaust.