3 years later, Netanyahu faces reckoning over Oct. 7 in Israeli election

Israel is marking the third anniversary of the Oct.

7 terror attacks three weeks before an election where Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's personal culpability for the country's worst-ever security failure will be a central issue.

Why it matters: Netanyahu has never looked more politically vulnerable than in the weeks after Oct.

7, but he has defied expectations by keeping his government afloat — presiding over simultaneous wars and an atmosphere of perpetual emergency.

Though the polls are tight, they leave a clear path for the ultimate political survivor to hang on yet again.

But Oct.

7 still looms over the country and his candidacy.

The opposition lambasts him for refusing to take responsibility or allow an independent inquiry into the Hamas attacks that killed around 1,200 people.

Every other senior national security official who was in office at the time of the attacks has resigned, except Netanyahu.

Netanyahu's chief opponent, former Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot, lost his son and two nephews during the war in Gaza.

Sources close to Eisenkot say he sees his main mission as replacing the man he holds responsible for allowing the Oct.

7 attacks.

Netanyahu blames the deep state.

His political and media allies — as well as his wife, Sara — have even spread conspiracy theories implying Israel was betrayed by its own security chiefs.