EVEN BEFORE Hamas, the militant group that runs Gaza, attacked Israel on October 7th, Lieutenant General Herzi Halevi was in a difficult position. In January 2023, when he became chief of general staff of the Israel Defence Forces (IDF), the most senior position in Israel’s army, the officer and reserve corps were rent by divisions over proposed reforms to the country’s Supreme Court. Some reservists threatened not to serve if the divisive prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, and his far-right coalition passed laws weakening the powers of the court. It was one of the army’s most turbulent periods in recent times.

       Hamas’s murder of 1,400 Israelis, and capture of more than 200 hostages, eclipsed all that. General Halevi is now commanding an aerial and ground offensive against the militant group in Gaza, in which more than 10,000 Palestinians have died, according to the enclave’s health ministry. Popular rage at the way Israel is conducting the war has inspired protests in many countries. The UN human-rights office says that Israel may have committed a war crime when it struck the Jabalia refugee camp. A minister in the Netanyahu government raised the possibility of using nuclear weapons against Gaza (he was suspended for his remarks).

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