Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that Gaza will not be rebuilt until Hamas is disarmed, underscoring Israel's insistence that lasting peace depends on eliminating the terrorist group's military capabilities.

With elections looming in October, Israel’s right wing is turning the push to rebuild Jewish settlements in Gaza into a central issue of their campaign.

Israel’s prime minister is gambling on an increasingly right-wing electorate approving of his government’s territorial policies.

But two months into the bloody conflict – at which point he was briefly a member of Mr Netanyahu's coalition – Mr Eisenkot learnt his youngest son, Gal Eisenkot, 25, had been killed in Gaza. He also lost two nephews.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has defended a new military offensive in Gaza that's more sweeping than previously announced, declaring in the face of growing condemnation at home and abroad that Israel “has no choice but to finish the job and complete the defeat of Hamas.

Gadi Eisenkot, a former head of Israel’s armed forces, has emerged as the main challenger to Benjamin Netanyahu in upcoming elections that could end the premiership of the country’s longest-serving leader.