It was under his successive administrations that Israel installed the Iron Dome system to intercept rockets from the Gaza Strip, and constructed, along the Gaza border, a 40-mile, $1.1bn fence, equipped with underground sensors, remote-controlled weapons and an expansive camera system.
He boasted that Israel had never known a more peaceful and prosperous time than the roughly 16 years he has been in power. He wanted to be remembered, he said, as “the protector of Israel”.
He was, as his acolytes put it, “Mr Security”. Certainly not while prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu was in charge. An attack like Hamas’s 7 October massacre was not supposed to have been possible.
