By Mohamed Majid
GAZA CITY, Palestine (AA) - Palestinian resistance group Hamas claimed Wednesday to have killed eight Israeli soldiers in attacks in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip.
The group’s armed wing, the Qassam Brigades, said four soldiers were killed and several others injured in an ambush near a school in al-Shawka neighborhood in eastern Rafah.
Hamas fighters also shot dead three Israeli soldiers in the area, the group said.
Another soldier was killed by his colleagues when Hamas fighters sought to capture him, the Palestinian group said.
Hamas also claimed to have detonated an explosive device at an Israeli force, leaving 15 soldiers killed and injured in al-Tanour neighborhood in eastern Rafah.
The group said its fighters also attacked with anti-tank shells three Israeli tanks and a military bulldozer in Rafah.
There was no confirmation from the Israeli army of the claim.
Early Wednesday, the Israeli army said that three soldiers had been killed in a booby-trapped building in Rafah.
Israel expanded its ground offensive in Rafah on Tuesday, with its tanks reaching the center of the city.
Israel's current expansion of its incursion into the city makes the Israeli army close to fully control the border area between Gaza and Egypt, known as the Philadelphi Corridor, a demilitarized buffer zone running along the Gaza-Egypt border.
Before the launch of the Israeli military operation against Rafah on May 6, the city was home to over 1.5 million displaced Palestinians who fled their areas across the Gaza Strip due to the Israeli onslaught that started on Oct. 7, 2023, following a Hamas attack.
Israel has since killed at least 36,170 Palestinians, the vast majority being women and children, and injured over 81,400 others, according to local health authorities.
More than seven months into the Israeli war, vast swathes of Gaza lay in ruins amid a crippling blockade of food, clean water, and medicine.
Israel stands accused of “genocide” at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which in its latest ruling has ordered Tel Aviv to halt its offensive in Rafah immediately.
*Writing by Mohammad Sio in Istanbul