"This is a war between the children of light and the children of darkness," said Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on Sunday after going to the Yiftach military base in Zikim near the Gaza border. "It will be a deadly war."
The defense minister toured the area and spoke with the soldiers serving there.
"What I saw here," he said, "by [our] soldiers, men and women, all these people together protected the State of Israel with their bodies.
"The bravery of the soldiers who attacked with their bare hands, sometimes with grenades, with weapons taken off terrorists, with the equipment they brought from home in the spur of the moment - these things are extremely impressive.
"We are [dealing with] a culture that does not accept our existence here - human savages, beasts of prey, who murdered our soldiers, our children, and our citizens. [Israeli forces] will eliminate Hamas.
"We will reach all the terrorist infrastructures, we will reach all the Hamas operatives and we will finish our mission only when we have eliminated them all."
Rescuing the hostages
Gallant then touched on the issue of missing Israeli citizens whose status has still not been confirmed.
"I received dozens of inquiries from families of abductees, missing persons, martyrs - the State of Israel has suffered a severe blow. We are all, in our hearts, with the bereaved families and those who are looking for their loved ones. We are making every effort to locate them.
"Our intelligence organizations and security forces are working day and night to try to get information [on missing persons]. This effort is happening parallel to the war effort."
Finally, the defense minister stated that he had spoken with several US politicians, including Chuck Schumer and Mitt Romney, in addition to the US security officials from the Pentagon and the State Department. He assured the Israeli people that the US would give Israel all the aid it needed.