The horrifying shock of the Hamas assault has given way to an agonising wait for Israeli retaliation to go well beyond cutting off power and water to Gaza and raining down missiles already killing thousands.

The lack of prescience about Israel’s day of terror was not just an appalling failure of Israeli intelligence and security services. Only eight days before Hamas stunned the world, US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan commented the Middle East region was “quieter” than it had been in two decades.