Israel’s army was still battling the final Hamas militants who remained on its territory on Sunday evening 36 hours after their devastating attack on the Jewish state. But the country’s leadership was already turning its attention to the next stage of the fighting.

Speaking after a security cabinet meeting, prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the country had now embarked on the “offensive phase” of the war, and pledged it would continue “with neither limitations nor respite until the objectives are achieved”.

As Netanyahu spoke, Israeli jets were pounding Hamas’s stronghold in the Gaza Strip. But given the unprecedented scale of the assault on Israel — during which militants killed more than 600 people, injured more than 2000, and took 100 hostage — Netanyahu and his far-right coalition was already facing a chorus of demands from supporters for far more aggressive action, including sending ground forces into the coastal enclave.