Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned Sunday that Israel is “ready to return at any moment to intensive combat” in Gaza, telling cadets graduating from a military officers’ course that “the operational plans are ready. ”

Throughout his address, delivered to incoming officers in the IDF’s Ground Forces, Netanyahu repeated his promise of total victory in Gaza, saying: “All of our hostages, without exception, will return home. Hamas won’t rule Gaza. Gaza will be demilitarized, and its fighting force will be dismantled.”

The prime minister has consistently argued that the goals of the war complement each other, asserting that the plight of the hostages is a reason to ramp up military pressure on Hamas, rather than pull back. Critics have asserted that the goals are in practice contradictory and that military pressure is more likely to kill than save the remaining captives.

Netanyahu’s address on Sunday came as Israel neared the end of the ongoing hostage-ceasefire deal’s first phase. The deal’s potential second phase would see the return of the remaining hostages in exchange for a permanent end to the war, but is yet to be negotiated. It is unclear whether Israel and Hamas will continue within the framework of the agreement or return to fighting.

Netanyahu came up to the stage at the ceremony amid both cheers and boos. When he held up a photo of murdered hostages Shiri, Ariel and Kfir Bibas, some in the crowd yelled out in protest, including calls of “Why didn’t you save them?”

Netanyahu said the image of the family “says it all. I want you to engrave it upon your hearts, so that we always remember what we’re fighting for and who we’re fighting against.”

He stressed that the Bibas boys and their mother were murdered in cold blood in the early days of the war, an assessment shared by the Israel Defense Forces after the return of their remains, which were examined by the Abu Kabir Forensic Institute.

“They strangled the tender boys with their bare hands,” the prime minister said. “And if they only could, they’d murder us all with the same cruelty.”

“We must defeat those monsters, and we will defeat them,” he said.

The prime minister said that the combination of diplomatic and military pressure on Hamas was enabling the return of hostages. Netanyahu thanked Trump for his commitment to send crucial weapons to Israel. “The new defensive and offensive weapons will help us greatly in achieving total victory,” he said.

Trump sees “eye-to-eye” with Israel on Gaza, he added.

“We support President Trump’s groundbreaking plan to enable the freedom to leave for Gazans, and the creation of a different Gaza,” Netanyahu said of the president’s proposal to relocate the entire Gaza population, and to have the US take over and rebuild the war-torn Strip.

Israeli tanks deployed to the West Bank on Sunday morning for the first time in over 20 years, as the Israel Defense Forces said it was expanding an ongoing counterterrorism operation in the north of the territory.

Netanyahu said, IDF troops will stay in West Bank cities for as long as it takes. The tank platoon that Israel introduced into the West Bank means that Israel is fighting terrorism “with all means and in all places,” he said.

The deployment came following the explosion of bombs on several empty buses in central Israel on Thursday night, and the discovery of several more unexploded bombs, in a botched terror attack in which there were no casualties. According to officials, the attack originated from the West Bank.

In Lebanon, Netanyahu said, the IDF is holding key positions “until the Lebanese army and Lebanese government fulfill all of their commitments according to the [ceasefire] agreement.”

Troops will stay on the Syrian Hermon and the buffer zone in the Golan Heights for “an unlimited period of time,” he added. “We will not allow [jihadist] forces or the new Syrian army to move into territory south of Damascus.”

“We demand full demilitarization of southern Syria from troops of the new Syrian regime in the Quneitra, Daraa and Suweyda provinces,” Netanyahu said, adding that Israel will not accept any threats to Druze in southern Syria.

On Iran, he said that Israel will not accept a nuclear weapon in the hands of the regime. The Islamic Republic, which is sworn to Israel’s destruction, denies any ambition to build a nuclear weapon, but is enriching uranium beyond any civilian purpose and obstructing inspectors at its nuclear facilities.

Netanyahu also thanked the outgoing IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi for leading the IDF in the ongoing war, as the crowd cheered.

Halevi, in his own address to the graduating cadets, apologized to the families of Shiri, Ariel and Kfir Bibas, and Oded Lifshitz, for failing to return their loved ones from captivity alive.

“We bow our heads before the Bibas and Lifshitz families, and ask for forgiveness for not being able to bring their loved ones back while they were alive,” he said.

“There are another 63 hostages, and we will do everything we can to bring everyone back,” Halevi added.

The outgoing IDF chief announced last month that he will retire on March 6, in light of the military’s failures surrounding the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack. He will be replaced by former Defense Ministry director-general Eyal Zamir.

Defense Minister Israel Katz, speaking at the same ceremony, also said the military was prepared to return to fighting in Gaza if necessary.

“If we are forced to return to fighting, the enemy will face the IDF with power it has never known before. We are preparing for this, and we are ready for this,” he said.

“The fighting will end with two clear achievements: the defeat of Hamas and the release of all our hostages,” Katz said, adding that Israel will work to return all the remaining living and dead hostages in Hamas captivity “swiftly.”

Katz also said that Israel’s eyes are looking at the entire Middle East, “especially toward Syria.”

“We have committed that we will not be able to return to the reality of October 7. There is a new policy in southern Syria. The IDF will not allow hostile forces to entrench themselves in the security zone in southern Syria… and we will act against any threat,” he said.

“[The IDF] built two proper posts atop the summit of Mount Hermon and seven posts in the buffer zone to ensure defense and offense against any challenge,” Katz added.

The IDF will remain in the posts “indefinitely,” he said.