As Israel entered the final month before its October 27 election, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a stark warning. On September 29, he claimed the country's enemies were plotting an attack before the vote, offering no evidence to support the claim. He then pivoted quickly to the ongoing military campaign in Gaza, stating Israeli forces had killed more than 100 "terrorists" in recent weeks.

Analysts say the link Netanyahu drew between the Gaza war, national security, and the upcoming election was deliberate. His central campaign argument, they say, is that he alone can protect Israel from the threats it faces across its borders.

The election is the first general vote since the Hamas-led attacks of October 7, 2023, which killed 1,139 people in Israel and triggered the military campaign in Gaza. According to reports, Israeli attacks in Gaza have since killed more than 74,000 Palestinians.

Netanyahu's opponents have used his record against him, pointing to what they describe as failures in preventing the 2023 attacks and in securing the swift release of captives still held in Gaza.

When a Flydubai flight carrying Israeli passengers from Dubai to Tel Aviv nearly crashed after a co-pilot attacked the pilot with an axe in the cockpit, Netanyahu moved quickly to use the incident to reinforce his image as the leader best suited to protect the country.

Polls indicate he faces a serious challenge in the vote.

Three years after the October 7 attacks, the Gaza war has become inseparable from Israel's domestic political debate. Analysts say it has also accelerated a shift to the right, with positions on Palestinians that were once considered fringe now widely regarded as mainstream.

Few figures illustrate this shift more clearly than Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who has been sanctioned by several Western countries and is known for inflammatory statements about Palestinians. Late last month, Smotrich told Israeli outlet Ynet that the Israeli army should "go to war" in the occupied West Bank and "do there what we did in Gaza."

Less than two weeks later, Smotrich's electoral ally Moshe Feiglin went further. "The enemy is Gaza, not Hamas," he told the Jerusalem Post, calling for the annexation of the territory after the election. "The baby that will be born tomorrow in Gaza will do exactly the same," he said, in reference to the 2023 attacks.

Palestinian political analyst Ahmed Najar said these are not isolated remarks from marginal figures. He described them as an electoral message from politicians seeking power, aimed at portraying Palestinians as "not a people with rights, but a demographic and security problem to be expelled, conquered or destroyed."

Najar added: "The frightening reality is that the coming election risks becoming a competition not over whether Palestinian life should be protected, but over who can promise to erase it most aggressively."

Ahron Bregman, an Israeli security analyst and senior teaching fellow at King's College London, said the rightward shift had been building for decades, particularly among younger Israelis following October 7.

"The trend toward the right began after the Yom Kippur War in 1973, but it has intensified dramatically since October 7," Bregman said, referring to the 1973 Arab-Israeli War.

The far right has been further emboldened through its role in Netanyahu's coalition government since 2022, described as the most right-wing government in Israeli history.

Alongside Smotrich, Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir has become one of the most prominent and controversial figures in the cabinet. Ben-Gvir has previously been convicted of inciting racism and of supporting a terrorist organisation.

Bregman was critical of Netanyahu's decision to bring both men into his coalition. "Netanyahu's greatest mistake -- among many -- was bringing figures like Ben-Gvir and Smotrich into his coalition," he said. "By doing so, he legitimised them as influential forces in Israeli politics."

Bregman noted that Ben-Gvir now has ambitions to become Israel's next defence minister.

"This is madness. But that's contemporary Israel," Bregman said.