TEL AVIV, December 12. /TASS/. Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi and Israel Security Agency (ISA) chief Ronen Bar held a meeting in Khan Yunis, highlighting progress in Israel’s operation against Hamas, The Jerusalem Post newspaper reports.

"We are deepening our gains in northern Gaza, the South, and underground," Halevi said, as cited by the newspaper. Bar, in turn, added that "there is no force which can stand up to the combined force" of the IDF and the ISA.

The meeting also involved IDF Southern Commander Yaron Finkleman.

The IDF said that more than 500 Palestinians had been arrested over the past four weeks and taken to be interrogated by the ISA and IDF intelligence Unit 504.

Tensions in the Middle East flared up again on October 7 after militants from the radical Palestinian group Hamas launched a surprise incursion into Israeli territory from the Gaza Strip, killing residents of border communities and taking people, including women, children and the elderly, hostage. Hamas described its attack as a response to the aggressive actions of Israeli authorities against the Al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem’s Old City. Israel announced a total blockade of Gaza and started carrying out retaliatory strikes on targets in the Strip, as well as on certain areas in Lebanon and Syria.