In principle, you can’t, as it is stored as text. If you want to use it as an operator, you will have to resort to something like this:
=IFS(
A1=”>”;B1>C1;
A1=”>=”;B1>=C1;
A1=”=”;B1=C1;
A1=”<=”;B1<=C1;
A1=”<“;B1<C1)
This formula checks if a value in B1 is whatever is defined in A1 then a value in C1.