By Hamdi Yılmaz
ISTANBUL (AA) - The Al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas’ armed wing, said on Saturday they killed a number of Israeli soldiers, injured others, and targeted military vehicles in the city of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip.
In a post on Telegram, the armed wing said Al-Qassam fighters “managed to detonate an anti-personnel explosive device in an engineering force consisting of six soldiers, causing them to be killed or injured near the George intersection east of Rafah.”
In another post, Al-Qassam added that its fighters “bombarded a gathering of Israeli soldiers and military vehicles with mortar shells in the Tal Zorob area in the Tal Sultan neighborhood west of Rafah.”
There was no immediate comment from the Israeli side regarding the Al-Qassam statement.
According to the Israeli army’s figure, 644 officers and soldiers have been killed since the beginning of the war on Oct. 7, including 293 in ground battles in the Gaza Strip.
The data also indicates that the number of soldiers injured in ground battles in Gaza since Oct. 27 has reached 1,848.
Israel has pounded the Gaza Strip in retaliation for an Oct. 7 attack by Hamas which killed about 1,200 people.
Nearly 36,400 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since Israel began its onslaught nearly eight months ago. The majority of those killed have been women and children, with more than 82,400 others injured, according to local health authorities.
Vast swathes of Gaza lay in ruins amid Israel's crippling blockade of food, clean water, and medicine.
Israel is accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice, which in its latest ruling has ordered Tel Aviv to immediately halt its operation in Rafah where more than 1 million Palestinians had sought refuge from the war.
* Writing by Rania Abu Shamala