When the Yom Kippur War erupted in 1973, the Canadian singer Leonard Cohen was living in Greece. He felt what Rich Cohen describes as an “irresistible impulse” to be with his fellow Jews, and headed for Tel Aviv. The musician’s wartime sojourn in Israel is the subject of a recent book:

Who By Fire: Leonard Cohen in the Sinai, by the journalist Matti Friedman, which chronicles the singing tour Leonard Cohen made of the front during the Yom Kippur War, does more to explain . . . why the Yom Kippur War devastated Israel in a way that is unjustified by simple numbers than any book I’ve ever read. On its surface, it’s a portrait of the Canadian-born poet and singer.

Cohen checked into a hotel when he arrived in Israel, then began hanging out in the sort of Tel Aviv cafes frequented by singers and artists—some of whom recognized him, including the great Israeli musician Matti Caspi—who had been performing at the front as part of their military service. Cohen tagged along. No records were kept of his performances. Friedman has reconstructed the tour through the memories of other performers and the soldiers who made up the audiences at bases in Israel, the Golan, and Sinai. In the last days of the war, Cohen played for small units across the Suez Canal in Egypt, a dangerous area known to soldiers simply as “Africa.”

This was no USO tour. Cohen wasn’t like Bob Hope climbing out of a Huey with a bevy of hangers-on and showgirls. He and his fellow performers lived rough, same as the soldiers. They borrowed beds for a few hours of rest, slept in tents or out in the open, under the missiles, fighter jets, and stars. To the soldiers who had never heard of Cohen—the majority—his appearance was strange and welcome. To those who had heard one of his songs on the radio, his appearance was another one of the surreal things that happened in October 1973. Everyone who saw one of these shows remembered and was changed by the experience, including Cohen.

Ron Ben-Yishai, reporting from a visit to IDF forces in the Gaza Strip, analyzes the state of the fighting, and “the persistent challenge of eradicating an entrenched enemy in a complex urban terrain.”

Hamas, sensing the war’s end, is mounting a final effort to inflict casualties. The IDF now controls 65 percent of Gaza’s territory operationally, with observation, fire dominance, and relative freedom of movement, alongside systematic tunnel destruction. . . . Major P, a reserve company commander, says, “It’s frustrating to hear at home that we’re stagnating. The public doesn’t get that if we stop, Hamas will recover.”

Senior IDF officers cite two reasons for the slow progress: meticulous care to protect hostages, requiring cautious movement and constant intelligence gathering, and avoiding heavy losses, with 22 soldiers killed since June.

Two-and-a-half of Hamas’s five brigades have been dismantled, yet a new hostage deal and IDF withdrawal could allow Hamas to regroup. . . . Hamas is at its lowest military and governing point since its founding, reduced to a fragmented guerrilla force. Yet, without complete disarmament and infrastructure destruction, it could resurge as a threat in years.

At the same time, Ben-Yishai observes, not everything hangs on the IDF:

According to the Southern Command chief Major General Yaron Finkelman, the IDF is close to completing its objectives. In classical military terms, “defeat” means the enemy surrenders—but with a jihadist organization, the benchmark is its ability to operate against Israel.

Despite [the IDF’s] battlefield successes, the broader strategic outcome—especially regarding the hostages—now hinges on decisions from the political leadership. “We’ve done our part,” said a senior officer. “We’ve reached a crossroads where the government must decide where it wants to go—both on the hostage issue and on Gaza’s future.”