By Murat Basoglu and Safiye Karabacak
GAZA CITY, Palestine (AA) - The Al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of the Palestinian resistance group Hamas, announced Sunday that they had killed and wounded a large number of Israeli soldiers in war zones in central parts of the blockaded Gaza Strip.
In a statement, the group said that two Israeli Merkava tanks and a bulldozer were targeted with Yasin 105 rockets in Bureij district.
A large number of Israeli soldiers were killed and wounded in the attack, and two tunnels containing a total of seven Israeli soldiers were blown up, it said.
The resistance group also said it bombarded a gathering of Israeli soldiers in the Al-Mahatta area of Khan Younis with mortars.
Israel has launched air and ground attacks on Gaza following a cross-border incursion by the Palestinian resistance group Hamas on Oct. 7 last year, killing at least 22,800 Palestinians and injuring more than 58,400 others.
Nearly 1,200 Israelis are believed to have been killed in the Hamas attack.
The Israeli onslaught has left Gaza in ruins, with 60% of the enclave's infrastructure damaged or destroyed, and nearly 2 million residents displaced amid acute shortages of food, clean water and medicines.
*Writing by Merve Berker