Why has the Gaza war lasted so long? In a blockbuster investigative profile published this morning, the Times Magazine explains how Benjamin Netanyahu prolonged it partly for personal political reasons. Our Jerusalem bureau chief, Patrick Kingsley, and his colleagues Ronen Bergman and Natan Odenheimer spent six months interviewing more than 110 people and reviewing scores of military and government documents.

I spoke to Patrick — who is leaving his role this summer after four and a half years in what many have called the hardest job in journalism — about Netanyahu, the war and how they got people to share so many secrets.

Today is the 643rd day since the Oct. 7 attacks. Nobody imagined the war would go on this long. Why is it still going?

The strategic argument was that it gave Israel a better chance of defeating not only Hamas but also Hamas’s regional allies, Hezbollah and Iran. Whether you buy that argument or not, our reporting shows that Netanyahu was clearly often motivated by his personal interest instead of only by these national priorities.

There were key turning points when Netanyahu chose to continue the war to prevent the collapse of his coalition government. Fearing a domestic backlash, Netanyahu also refused to finalize a clear postwar plan for Gaza, leading to an aimless battlefield strategy that killed tens of thousands, stained Israel’s reputation — and still allowed Hamas to survive.