Benjamin Netanyahu said the bombardment of Gaza “will not stop” until Israeli forces are completely victorious in their aims, Al Jazeera reports.

Amid reports that Israel’s military is moving to a less-intensive form of combat in Gaza, Netanyahu said Israeli forces “will continue to fight with full force until we achieve all of our goals”.

“I say this again so that no one will be in doubt: We are striving for total victory, not just ‘to strike Hamas’ or ‘to hurt Hamas’, not ‘another round with Hamas’, but total victory over Hamas,” he said in a heated speech, extracts of which were released later in a statement.

“We will not stop. We will not finish the war before returning our loved ones home; we will not finish the war before total victory,” he said. Netanyahu used the term “total victory” eight times in his speech.