TEL AVIV, July 2. /TASS/. More than 900 Palestinian radicals have been neutralized during Israel’s operation in the city of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, Israeli Chief of the General Staff Herzi Halevi said.

"In the Rafah Brigade, what we’ve seen with our own eyes, and I don't want to say something out of thin air, we count over 900 terrorists killed, including commanders, at least one battalion commander, many company commanders and many operatives," the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) quoted him as saying.

According to Halevi, the Israeli military inRafah "is now focused on the destruction of the terrorist infrastructure and the destruction of the underground infrastructure, which takes time." "Therefore, this is a long campaign, because we do not want to leave Rafah with the terrorist infrastructure intact. There are those we eliminated underground, and some that tried to emerge above ground, and we eliminated them," he said.

He said that the current task for Israeli forces to exhaust radicals before proceeding to the next phase of the operation. "They should feel exhausted, while we feel energized and determined. When we move to the next phase, we will adapt appropriate measures for that phase, bring new tactics, provide logistical support in a different way that fits that phase," he added.

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 240 Israelis, including women, children and the elderly. 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.