H ebron, the biggest city in the West Bank, had paid little attention to Israel’s looming elections until it found itself suddenly in the midst of them, a proving ground for Benjamin Netanyahu’s security credentials in the run-up to Tuesday’s vote.

A gun attack on an Israeli military checkpoint on Friday in which two soldiers were killed brought immediate televised visits from Netanyahu and his finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, whose ruling coalition is narrowly trailing with two days of campaigning left.

They vowed abrupt and sweeping retribution, and the prime minister warned of imminent military operations on a scale the West Bank has not seen in nearly 60 years of occupation.

Within hours, the whole city of 250,000 people had been sealed off and the neighbourhood of Farsh al-Hawa, closest to the site of Friday’s attack, had been flattened.…