Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday that he had ordered the country’s military to take control of 70 per cent of the Gaza Strip, in defiance of the terms of a fragile ceasefire that took effect in October.

“We are currently squeezing Hamas. We now control 60pc of the territory in the strip. You know, we were at 50, we moved to 60. My directive is to move to … 70pc,” he has said at a conference in an occupied West Bank settlement, according to a video aired by Israel’s Channel 12 network.