By Ahmed Asmar
ANKARA (AA) - The Israeli army on Tuesday announced that four soldiers were killed in Monday's blast in a booby-trapped house in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip.
The Hamas group's armed wing announced on Monday that its fighters blew up a building in Rafah's Shaboura area when an Israeli force entered inside, leaving the soldiers dead and injured.
The Israeli army said all four slain soldiers were from the army's Givati Brigade’s reconnaissance unit.
Seven others were injured in the blast, including five in serious condition, the Israeli army added.
The soldiers' death brings the number of Israeli soldiers killed since the start of the Israeli ground operation in Gaza on Oct. 27 to 299, while the army's total fatalities since the launch of the Israeli onslaught against Gaza on Oct. 7 jumps to 650.
Israel has faced international condemnation amid its continued brutal offensive on Gaza since an Oct. 7 attack by the Palestinian group Hamas, despite a UN Security Council resolution demanding an immediate cease-fire.
More than 37,100 Palestinians have since been killed in Gaza, most of them women and children, and nearly 84,700 others injured, according to local health authorities.
More than eight months into the Israeli war, vast tracts 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, whose latest ruling ordered Tel Aviv to immediately halt its operation in the southern city of Rafah, where over a million Palestinians had sought refuge from the war before it was invaded on May 6.
*Writing by Ahmed Asmar