Sparked by the invasion of thousands of Hamas terrorists into Israel by air, land and sea on Oct 7, killing 1,200 mostly civilians and taking over 250 hostages, Israel’s retaliatory bombardment has, according to Hamas figures, left over 33,000 dead in Gaza. Israel’s military claims at least 14,000 terrorists from Hamas’s more than 35,000 strong militia have been killed.

“The people in Gaza are bewildered, desperate and frightened and those factors are very important. When you recruit you’re always looking for the weak spots and now, there are enormous weak spots,” a second security source told The Telegraph.

“Since November, nothing has happened in terms of formal negotiations so we have to be on the ground and find the hostages ourselves, and do everything we can to eliminate Hamas,” the source added.

Two hostages, Fernando Marman, 60, and Louis Har, 70, were rescued by the IDF in a daring raid in Rafah earlier this year.

Meanwhile on Sunday, the US was reportedly involved in diplomatic efforts to prevent the International Criminal Court from issuing an arrest warrant for Mr Netanyahu in connection to its genocide case against Israel.

An arrest warrant in the case raised by South Africa would make it almost impossible for the Israeli prime minister to travel abroad and would have huge implications for Israel diplomatically on the world stage.