TEL AVIV, December 30. /TASS/. Israel will continue its operation against Hamas in the Gaza Strip for "many months" until it reaches all its goals, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said.

"Victory takes more time. The war will continue for many months. My policy is clear - to continue fighting until all the goals of this war are attained. We will see to it that Hamas is no longer a threat to Israel," he told a news conference.

According to the Israeli prime minister, Israel "has achieved serious successes," having eliminated "more than 8,000 Hamas terrorists" in the Gaza Strip.

He vowed that Israeli soldiers will spare no effort to ensure security for all people living in northern Israel. "If [the Lebanese Shiite movement] Hezbollah expands its combat operations, it will receive such blows that it can not even imagine," he warned, adding that "the same applies to Iran."

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.