Produced by: Saurabh Sharma
Designed by: Manoj Kumar
Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu, who is probably fighting the toughest battle against Hamas, was born into a family with a strong connection to Israel's history and the Zionist movement. His father, Benzion Netanyahu, was a history professor and 'an ardent believer in Greater Israel', according to Carnegie Europe.
Netanyahu was born in 1949 in Tel Aviv and grew up in Jerusalem. His high school years were spent in the US, where his father taught. He returned to Israel to serve as a soldier and officer in 'Sayeret Matkal', a special forces unit of the Israeli Defence Forces. He served in the IDF from 1967 to 1972 and went back to the US to study at MIT.
Netanyahu's studies were interrupted when his brother, Yonatan Netanyahu, was killed during a raid in Uganda in 1976, which inspired him to return to Israel and dedicate his life to protecting the Jewish nation, Hoover Institution wrote in December 2022. Yonatan was an Israeli military officer who commanded the elite 'Sayeret Matkal'.
Netanyahu, who is also known as Bibi, officially entered politics in 1988. In the same year, he was elected to the Knesset (the Israeli parliament) on the Likud party ticket and was appointed Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs. In less than a decade into politics, Bibi became the prime minister of Israel for the first time in 1996.
Netanyahu is the longest-serving PM of Israel (1996-1999, 2009-2021, and 2022-present). His first term was relatively peaceful but in the second term, he faced major escalations from Gaza, Syria, and Hezbollah. Under his watch, one of Israel biggest operations - Operation Pillar of Defence - was launched in November 2012.
Two years after 'Operation Pillar of Defence', in which 19 Hamas leaders including military branch head Ahmed Jabari were eliminated, Israel launched another operation 'Operation Protective Edge' against Hamas after the militant group allegedly fired rockets on civilians in Southern Israel.
In November 2015, Bibi said Israel would never give up hope for a two-state solution with the Palestinians. However, in February this year, he told CNN that he was willing to have Palestine have all the powers that it needed to govern itself, but none of the powers that can threaten Israel. He said Palestine can have its flag, and its parliament, "but we have to have overriding security control".
Netanyahu does not want Iran, which backs Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon, to develop a nuclear weapon, which he fears can set off a nuclear arms race in the Middle East. In April this year, Bibi said the world had changed, but the calls for extermination of Jews had not, "and today (such calls) come from the regime of horror in Tehran".
Netanyahu, in an interview published by the Hoover Institution in December last year, said that Iran has the ability to use its conventional weapons against Israel with a nuclear umbrella. "And there it becomes basically immortal, it can do anything...we have to prevent Iran from having nuclear weapons."
Following Hamas' deadliest attack on Israel, Netanyahu has vowed to finish Hamas. UK-based Financial Times recently wrote that Hamas' attack tarnished Bibi's image as Israel's defender. Reports suggest that Netanyahu may invade Gaza to finish Hamas but the move may trigger broader regional conflict and cause significant collateral damage.
Cornelius Adebahr, a non-resident fellow at Carnegie Europe, said the entire Middle East appears to be on the brink of catastrophe, and whether scenarios of an all-out regional war come to pass depends on Israel's next steps. If this is Israel's 9/11, he said, it must not make the same mistakes the US made with the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan.
Bibi's popularity has dropped significantly. His proposed judicial reforms divided Israel and pushed the country on a perilous path as some security personnel threatened to join protests against him. Netanyahu, who failed to secure a majority in five elections in four years but managed to form a government, is under pressure to act against Hamas. Now, all eyes are on his next step in Gaza.