Based in Israel, Henry reports on the war in the Middle East, terrorism, Israeli politics and life in the Palestinian territories 5:00am GMT On Sunday morning, Benjamin Netanyahu posted an AI-generated image depicting a nuclear explosion in downtown Tel Aviv.

His purpose was to persuade undecided voters that a victory for any of his opponents in Tuesday’s general election would expose Israelis to a “second Holocaust” at the hands of Iran.

“Anyone who cares about their own physical existence, that of their family, and their loved ones should have a trembling hand before voting for someone who won’t be able to complete the mission …” he wrote. His rivals accused him of hysteria, fearmongering, and of having “lost it”.

Even White House officials were alarmed, according to reports, fearing that the picture could prompt an Iranian miscalculation.

Mr Netanyahu’s campaign messaging has become increasingly apocalyptic Others pointed out that by releasing the image, Mr Netanyahu undermined his claim to have already “devastated” Iran’s nuclear programme.

Aside from the substantive politics, a sitting prime minister depicting in gratuitous detail the destruction of his country’s main population centre – complete with a fiery mushroom cloud – seemed an apt metaphor for the final stages of the Likud campaign.

It is one of a series of decisions in the past week which suggest that Mr Netanyahu sees the election result as not just crucial for the future of Israel, but for his own personal fate – and indeed his chances of staying out of jail.

In the past week, with the polls turning against him, the 77-year-old has ordered the mass displacement of around 3,000 Palestinians in Hebron, according to local figures, in response to the murder of two soldiers in a terror attack.

He has sent the establishment into meltdown by speculating openly about a future Israeli economy so strangled by international sanctions it has to use cryptocurrency to survive. He has said Israel should no longer rely on US military support.

He paid a secretive visit to an obscure rabbi to persuade the cleric to put pressure on an election rival, Ofer Winter, to stand down.

It was one of a flurry of similar phone calls and meetings with other relatively minor candidates with the same goal – to secure every last vote for Likud.

Some of the Israeli PM’s devoted following showed their support as he paid a campaign visit to Mahane Yehuda market in Jerusalem Mr Netanyahu conducted a lengthy interview at 2am with the Jerusalem Post to demonstrate his energy.

He has issued blood-curdling threats to Israel’s enemies while posing in front of military jets and missile batteries. And according to reports, he also has begged Donald Trump for ever louder expressions of support.

The US president has obliged. On Sunday he repeated his endorsement of Mr Netanyahu, echoing his ally’s language by posting on Truth Social that “we have to finish the job”.

On Monday, the eve of the election, Mr Netanyahu said in his final pitch to voters that Israel faced potential annihilation at the hands of Iran should his rivals prevail.

At the same time, however, the Israeli news site Walla News quoted a US official as saying: “We’ve never seen Netanyahu like this. He’s projecting political distress.”Most significantly, it is claimed – and denied – that the veteran Right-winger tried in recent days to restart the war with Iran, before being prevented at one turn by Mr Trump, who promised action soon, and at another by his own chief of staff, Gen Eyal Zamir.

He hoped, his opponents allege, that renewed conflict would force the postponement of an election at which his party is forecast to lose more than a third of its seats, and his governing coalition its Knesset majority.

On trial at home, and wanted for alleged war crimes abroad, Mr Netanyahu’s freedom could well depend on staying in office.

Some elements of the prosecution case look wobbly, but no one can say which way the court – a panel of three judges – will go.

Mr Netanyahu’s future may depend on securing a pardon from Israeli president Isaac Herzog What is certain, however, is that if Mr Netanyahu loses office after tomorrow’s vote, the trial process will speed up significantly, bringing the verdicts, and potentially the sentence of imprisonment, closer.

The prime minister has pleaded not guilty to charges of fraud, bribery and breach of trust, and denies any wrongdoing.

If he loses office, he also forfeits his main bargaining chip for a more lenient sentence in some form of plea deal.

The Telegraph understands that Isaac Herzog, the Israeli president and no fan of the prime minister, would consider offering him a full pardon if he stepped away from politics in the event of an inconclusive result this week. But, again, if the voters decisively push him out of their own accord, Mr Netanyahu will have no cards to play. If, on the other hand, he does hold on to office, his prosecution is widely expected to founder.

The general election is Israel’s first since the Oct 7 terror attacks One tactic would be to appoint a new attorney general who would dismiss the charges. His current one, Gali Baharav-Miara, is implacably opposed to such a course of action.

Meanwhile the arrest warrants issued by the International Criminal Court on suspicion of war crimes in Gaza will restrict his freedom of travel as a private citizen even more than it does his movements as prime minister.

And these allegations may not be the only ones he needs to face in the coming years. The full extent of investigations into Qatar’s involvement and financial dealings with people in his office is not yet known.

What’s more, a UN commission said in a report published on Monday that Israel had continued to commit genocide in Gaza after last October’s US-brokered ceasefire in the enclave – something Israel dismissed as being part of a “misinformation campaign”.

The report said Israeli authorities had continued to commit “genocidal acts with the genocidal intent to destroy, in whole or in part, the Palestinians in Gaza”, and that the situation had also deteriorated in the occupied West Bank.

In recent weeks there has been a growing perception that Israel’s security and military establishment wants Mr Netanyahu out.

The near-constant stream of revelations concerning alleged security briefings he was given and then ignored in the run-up to the Oct 7 massacre has the feeling of a deep state that has had enough.

Enough, its defenders say, of being scapegoated, politicised and undermined by its political leader.

Mr Netanyahu has long towered over Israel’s politics and has spent longer in office than any previous PM Long-term political allies are deserting the prime minister.

Tzachi Hanegbi, a former Likud minister and national security adviser between 2023 and 2025, said last week that he would be voting for Yisrael Beytenu, the Right-wing anti-Netanyahu party led by Avigdor Liberman.

Explaining his defection, he said: “I am not the messianic Right. And I am not the racist Right. And not the Right that disdains its ideological rivals. And I’m not the Right that remains silent in the face of nationalist violence.”Ronald Lauder, a longstanding Netanyahu confidant and current head of the World Jewish Congress, warned last Friday about reelecting his former friend.

“One of the things that made Israel so special compared to other countries is that they had a real democracy,” the billionaire philanthropist said.

“What we’re seeing now feels more like a banana republic. If Bibi is elected, Israel stands to lose badly.”Few believe Mr Netanyahu’s coalition can win outright this week.

There might, however, be a slim pathway to survival if he can narrow the gap between his own Likud and Yashar, led by Gadi Eisenkot, the former chief of staff, which is predicted to become the biggest party.

If Yashar wins the most seats, it becomes more likely that other opposition parties will fall in behind Mr Eisenkot, giving him the best chance of forming a replacement government, subject to some form of agreement with the Arab parties. However, an indecisive result could prompt bickering among the opposition.

Mr Netanyahu has almost wizard-like powers of exploiting scenarios such as this, and of finding ways to tempt even the most unlikely parties into coalition. As such, he is maximising every vote he can from the Right.

This will not increase the size of the Right-wing coalition’s overall majority, but it might boost Likud itself, thereby giving him a better platform from which to call the post-election shots.

He will ‘stop at nothing to stay in power’ This week’s major operation against Palestinian neighbourhoods in Hebron, condemned by critics as collective punishment, can be seen in that light.

So too Mr Netanyahu’s comments about Israel doing just fine in the event of being turned against and sanctioned by the world, a return to his theme, briefly posited last year, of the Jewish state as an autarky. Among the increasingly populous religious-nationalist community, diplomacy is not of foremost concern. In Israel, the election is only part one. Subsequent negotiations often take weeks.

All the while, Mr Netanyahu will remain caretaker prime minister, with the power to order the Israel Defense Forces into action.

It was reported by CNN on Monday that Mr Trump had assured Mr Netanyahu that he would approve a renewed joint assault on Iran soon.

In such a situation, in which Iranian ballistic missiles would certainly rain down on Israel once again, the prime minister may well try to tempt opposition figures into a wartime or national unity government.

On Sunday, a few hours after his nemesis posted that provocative picture of Tel Aviv being vaporised, Mr Eisenkot warned that Mr Netanyahu “will stop at nothing to stay in power”.

The former top general has fought and vanquished many opponents on the battlefield, but he has never faced a political survivor quite like this prime minister.