'He isn't Winston Churchill': Despite anger and blame, war buys time for Israel's unpopular leader

TEL AVIV, Israel — Israel is at war, and its longest-serving leader, Benjamin Netanyahu, seems at once everywhere and nowhere.

As the country confronts its gravest security crisis in decades, set off by a devastating surprise attack by the Palestinian militant group Hamas that killed 1,400 people in southern Israel, the prime minister has carried on with some high-profile political appearances — but has also been strangely absent from public life at a moment of dire national emergency.

With the war appearing to enter an intense new phase Friday night, Netanyahu has been spending his days visiting world leaders, donning body armor for well-documented field visits to Israeli military units and delivering carefully scripted communiques about an all-out battle being joined with Hamas.

But the 74-year-old prime minister — once hailed for as a retail politician,