Al-Qassam Brigades claims it targeted 2 Israeli tanks in Rafah

By Mohammed Majed

GAZA CITY, Palestine (AA) - The armed wing of Hamas announced Wednesday it targeted two Israeli tanks in Rafah and engaged in "fierce clashes” with Israeli soldiers in Gaza City.

The Al-Qassam Brigades said on Telegram that the group “targeted 2 Israeli tanks with rocket shells in the city of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip.”

It said separately that fighters are “engaging in fierce clashes with enemy forces penetrating east of the Zeitoun neighborhood.”

The group added that fighters targeted Israeli forces in Zeitoun “with mortar shells.”

Al-Qassam said that they targeted “the enemy's command headquarters in the Netzarim axis in the southern Gaza City with a 114mm rocket.”

There was no immediate comment from the Israeli army on the reports.

Israel has faced international condemnation amid its continued brutal offensive on Gaza since an Oct. 7 attack by Hamas despite a UN Security Council resolution demanding an immediate cease-fire.

More than 37,200 Palestinians have since been killed in Gaza, most of them women and children, and more than 84,900 others injured, according to local health authorities.

Eight months into the Israeli war, vast tracts of Gaza lay in ruins amid a crippling blockade of food, clean water and medicine.

Israel is accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice, whose latest ruling ordered Tel Aviv to immediately halt its operation in the southern city of Rafah, where more than 1 million Palestinians had sought refuge from the war before it was invaded on May 6.

*Writing by Rania Abu Shamala