Standing alongside his partners in Israel’s newly announced war cabinet, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant pledged to obliterate Hamas, at the close of the fifth day of war against the terror group controlling the Gaza Strip, writes The Times of Israel.

Hundreds of Hamas terrorists burst into southern Israel and carried out a devastating assault on Saturday, killing at least 1,200 people, most of whom were civilians, and many of whom were massacred.

“We will wipe out this thing called Hamas”, Gallant said in the Wednesday evening press conference. “Hamas - the Islamic State of Gaza - will be wiped from the face of the earth. It will not continue to exist. There will be no situation in which Israeli children are murdered and we all go about our business.”

Gallant described the Hamas onslaught as “the worst terror attack the world has ever seen.” And he cited “children bound together and murdered, people burned, barbaric deeds that the Jewish people has not suffered since 1945”.

Speaking just before him, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also described the horrific killings and vowed that “every Hamas member is a dead man”.