Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday said he believed that the main phase of the war against the Islamist Hamas in the Gaza Strip would soon be concluded.
"We are moving towards the end of the phase of dismantling Hamas' terror army," he said in Jerusalem at a reception for cadets of the National Defence Academy. "We will continue to fight their remnants."
Netanyahu had earlier visited the Gaza Division, which is currently deployed in the city of Rafah in the south of the Gaza Strip. He had seen "very considerable progress" there, he said.
Israel has been bombarding Gaza for months and started a ground offensive after Hamas' mass attack on southern Israel on October 7. At least 37,765 Palestinians have been killed and another 86,429 injured in Gaza since then, according to the health authority in the coastal strip.
The offensive in Rafah on the border with Egypt is aimed at dismantling the last major Hamas combat units, Netanyahu said. However, the Islamist militia remains militarily active in the form of smaller units.
The words of the Israeli prime minister indicate that the army's major ground offensive in the Gaza Strip could soon come to an end.
Netanyahu and senior military officials have often pointed out that Israeli troops would remain in strategic locations in the sealed-off coastal area even after the phase of intense fighting. This would primarily include the so-called Philadelphi Corridor, a 14-kilometre-long, narrow strip that runs along the border with Egypt near Rafah on the Gaza side.
Earlier on Monday, around 20 rockets were fired at Israeli territory from the Gaza Strip, with Israeli artillery responding, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said.
Some of the rockets had been intercepted, while others had come down in open countryside, it said. Air-raid sirens sounded in locations near the border ordering residents to seek shelter. The IDF said it had fired on the launch sites with artillery.
The attacks were the heaviest for some time, Israeli media reported.
Thousands of rockets were fired in the initial months of the war at Israeli targets as far away as Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. The attacks have since declined in frequency.
