Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that the fighting with Gaza's Hamas rulers "will take time."
He said Israel's airstrike campaign against Hamas in Gaza is not nearing an end. "It will take time, but with great firmness, both defensively and offensively, we will achieve our goal -- to restore peace to the State of Israel," he said during a visit at an Iron Dome air defense battery in central Israel.
Meanwhile, combat troops have moved along the fence separating between the Gaza Strip and Israel amid "various stages of preparing ground operations," Jonathan Conricus, a spokesman with the Israel Defense Forces, told reporters.
"The Chief of Staff is inspecting those preparations and providing guidance," Xinhua cited him as saying.
