Now that something approaching a peace has been declared in Gaza, Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, faces his greatest battle.

Israelis have long liked to quip that “Bibi” is no more than “the sum of his fears”, but without a war to riff on, things could be about to get very dark indeed for the great escape artist.

Mr Netanyahu’s challenges range across the political, legal and personal – and are coming into ever sharper relief.

Three times in the past two years alone he has had to submit to the surgeon’s knife: first to have a pacemaker fitted, then to have a hernia repaired and most recently to have his enlarged prostate removed.

As if this were not enough, he faces an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court alleging war crimes and crimes against humanity, an ongoing criminal trial for fraud and corruption, and a group of extremist coalition “partners” so brazen that they tried to unseat him recently when they (wrongly) believed him to be incapacitated from his prostate operation.

Perhaps only Silvio Berlusconi, the late former Italian prime minister, has faced such a confluence of nasties in recent years – but at least he had his Bunga Bunga to look back on.