On the ninth day after Hamas overran more than 20 Israeli pastoral communities and army bases, killing 1,400 people and taking 150 hostages back to Gaza, Israel was a country on edge. Israelis were girding with grim determination for what they widely see as a war of no choice after the attack on October 7th – the deadliest day for Jews in Israel’s 75-year history and, officials say, since the Holocaust. They were awaiting an imminent ground invasion into the Palestinian enclave controlled by Hamas even as tensions escalated on the northern border with Lebanon, threatening a long and devastating...