Hamas fighters killed eight Israeli soldiers traveling in military vehicles in Rafah after firing rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) and then ambushed a support force deployed to the scene.
Saturday’s attacks marked one of the deadliest days for Israeli soldiers in Gaza in months, as the ground invasion of the southern region continues to intensify.
The Qassam Brigades, Hamas’ military wing, said in a statement that its soldiers “carried out a complex ambush against enemy vehicles” in the Saudi neighborhood of Tal as-Sultan district, west of the city of Rafah. .
The armed group said it fired Yassin-105 RPGs at a D9 military bulldozer, killing and injuring an unidentified number of Israeli soldiers. A “rescue forces” vehicle that arrived later was also attacked, “resulting in its destruction and the death of all its occupants”.
The Israeli army said in a statement that the eight soldiers “fell during operational activity in southern Gaza,” without elaborating. Daniel Hagari, a spokesman for the Israeli army, said an investigation would be opened into the exact circumstances of the attack.
“We are working to disarm all combatants in order to prevent Hamas from attacking civilians again like on October 7. Today we received another reminder of the high price we are paying because of this war, and we have soldiers ready to sacrifice their strength. lives to defend Israel,” Hagari said in a televised statement.
At least 307 Israeli soldiers have been killed and thousands injured since October 27, when the ground invasion of Gaza was launched. At least 37,296 Palestinians – mostly women, children and the elderly – have died since the war began on October 7, according to Gaza’s health ministry.
Saturday’s casualties will likely fuel calls for a ceasefire and inflame Israeli public anger. In January, 21 Israeli soldiers were killed in a single attack by Palestinian fighters in central Gaza.
Assault on Rafah expands
Despite international condemnation and censure, Israeli forces continue to enter and surround Rafah, where at least 19 Palestinians were killed on Saturday. Hundreds of thousands of desperate civilians, without food, water and medicine, remain stuck in the city.
Air, sea and artillery attacks on the Tal as-Sultan region intensified after the deadly Hamas ambush.
Mohamad Elmasry, a professor at the Doha Institute of Higher Studies, said Saturday’s attack shows that Israel’s stated war goal of destroying Hamas remains elusive after eight months of fighting.
“The Palestinian resistance fighters put up quite a fight,” he told Tel Aviv Tribune, citing a recent report quoting U.S. intelligence officials as saying that about 70 percent of Hamas’ fighting forces remain intact.
“What’s even worse, from the Israeli point of view, is that Hamas has been able to recruit thousands of new members, so there is no manpower problem for Hamas. »
Gideon Levy, an author and columnist for the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, said the deaths of eight soldiers were a “heavy toll on Israeli society.”
“More and more people in Israel are asking why and for how long? This could become an endless war – a war of attrition in which, no matter how powerful the Israeli military is, Hamas forces can still kill and sabotage, and then there would be direct retaliation. This doesn’t lead anywhere. We will never achieve this ridiculous ‘total victory’ that Prime Minister Netanyahu talks about,” Levy told Tel Aviv Tribune.
Despite growing international pressure for a ceasefire, an agreement to end the fighting still appears distant.
Since a week-long truce in November that freed more than 100 Israelis, repeated attempts to establish a ceasefire have failed, with Hamas insisting on a permanent end to the war and the complete withdrawal of Gaza Israel. Netanyahu refuses to end invasion before Hamas is “eradicated.”
It is estimated that more than 100 captives remain in Gaza, although many of them are believed to be dead. The armed wing of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the al-Quds Brigades, said on Saturday that Israel could only regain its population if it ended the war and withdrew its troops from the besieged enclave.