TEL AVIV, November 26. /TASS/. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has visited the Gaza Strip where he spoke with Israeli soldiers and pledged that the operation in the enclave will be continued "until victory," Netanyahu’s office said.

"We will continue until the end, until victory. Nothing will stop us, and we are convinced that we have the power, the strength, the will and the determination to achieve all the war’s goals, and we will," he told the troops.

"We are making every effort to return our hostages, and eventually we will return them all," he said. "We have three goals for this war: eliminating Hamas, returning all our hostages, and ensuring that Gaza does not become a threat to the State of Israel again."

Hamas announced on November 22 that an agreement on a four-day humanitarian ceasefire in the Gaza Strip had been reached through the mediation of Qatar and Egypt. The agreement stipulates the release of 50 women and children under the age of 19 who are held in Gaza in exchange for the release of 150 women and children under the age of 19 from Israeli prisons.

A four-day ceasefire came into force in the Gaza Strip from 8:00 a.m. local time (5:00 a.m. GMT) on November 24.

Tensions flared up again in the Middle East on October 7 after militants from the Gaza Strip-based radical Palestinian group Hamas launched a surprise incursion on Israeli territory, killing many Israeli kibbutz residents living near the Gaza border and abducting more than 200 Israelis, including women, children and the elderly. Hamas described its attack as a response to Israeli authorities’ aggressive actions against the Al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem’s Old City. Israel declared a total blockade of the Gaza Strip and launched bombardments of the enclave and some areas in Lebanon and Syria, as well as a ground operation against Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Clashes are also reported in the West Bank.