JERUSALEM — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s highly publicized tours of sites damaged by Iranian missiles suggest he intends to ride Israel’s war on Iran all the way to the ballot box. 

On Wednesday he visited Rishon Letzion, a Likud stronghold just south of Tel Aviv where a missile killed two people a week ago and caused severe damage to several apartment blocks, causing many to flee. Netanyahu walked through the rubble, spoke with residents and hugged a woman whose parents’ home had been destroyed. He stopped at a neighborhood falafel shop and bought a sandwich, pulling out his own wallet to pay. In Israeli political tradition, falafel stops are akin to the American rite of kissing babies on the campaign trail. 

Netanyahu, whose political career had seemed to be in a nosedive after Hamas' massacre in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, is projecting the image of a winner who prevailed over the forces of evil in the aftermath of the war with Iran. After avoiding public appearances during the 2023 protests over his government’s attempts to overhaul the judicial system and the ensuing war with Hamas, Netanyahu is now eager to engage with voters.

Many political pundits say that Netanyahu, already Israel’s longest-serving prime minister with some 17 cumulative years in office, has decided to run for a seventh term in October 2026.