Prime Minister Naftali Bennett has been put through the wringer this past week.

First came intense efforts to stem the massive political bleeding of his Yamina party and governing coalition following the stunning resignation of coalition whip Knesset member Idit Silman. Silman announced that she was quitting the coalition, to join the opposition, robbing Bennett of his fragile Knesset majority. Three days of frantic negotiations to appease and/or threaten other would-be defections to the opposition staunched the political bleeding, at least for now. For the moment, no other Yamina member has announced his/her defection.

But by the end of the week, Bennett was facing a different kind of nightmare, when a Palestinian from the West Bank opened fire in the evening hours of April 7 at a pub on one of Tel Aviv’s main commercial and nightlife drags, shooting dead two young men, Eytam Magini and Tomer Morad, friends aged 27 out for a night on the town. Several others were injured, four of them very seriously. As he fled the scene, the terrorist shot at a dog walker, missed and disappeared into the night.

Tel Aviv’s bustling streets emptied of partygoers and filled with security forces of every kind — police, army commandos, Shin Bet security agents, and more. The tense, dramatic manhunt launched for the shooter was aired live on television channels, riveting Israelis to their screens as they adhered to police instructions to stay inside and lock their doors. In the pre-dawn hours of April 8, special forces located the terrorist hiding by a mosque in the nearby Jaffa neighborhood. According to police, a gunfight ensued and he was shot dead.