The Palestinian resistance announced on Thursday the implementation of a series of operations against the Israeli occupation forces penetrating east of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, while the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper reported new statistics on the Israeli deaths since the start of the war.
The Al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), said that it detonated a bomb tunnel east of Rafah in an Israeli engineering force consisting of 3 vehicles, an excavator, and a number of soldiers, leaving them dead and wounded.
It also reported that it bombed the occupation forces penetrating east of the city of Rafah with mortar shells.
Likewise, the Al-Quds Brigades, the military wing of the Islamic Jihad Movement, said that its fighters were engaged in fierce clashes with the occupation soldiers and vehicles penetrating east of Rafah, and it also broadcast scenes of it bombarding the occupation forces with mortar shells.
Israeli officials said that the military operation would continue in Rafah. The Israeli occupation army said that it was targeting Hamas brigades and their infrastructure east of Rafah, and added that the forces of the 401st Brigade were continuing to raid the Palestinian side of the Rafah crossing.
Tel Aviv Tribune obtained satellite images showing the incursion of the occupation forces into Rafah, where dozens of military vehicles are stationed near the intersection of Airport and Salah al-Din Streets.
The pictures also showed the presence of Israeli vehicles on the Palestinian side of the Rafah crossing, about 200 meters from the Philadelphia axis.
He penetrated the Al-Zaytoun neighborhood
In other areas, the Al-Qassam Brigades said that they targeted two Israeli vehicles with a Yassin 105 shell and a Shawaz device during their incursion south of the Al-Zaytoun neighborhood in Gaza City, and the forces invading the same area were also bombarded with mortar shells.
Al-Qassam added that it targeted an Israeli D-9 bulldozer with a Tandom shell southeast of the Al-Sabra neighborhood in Gaza City.
Al-Qassam broadcast a video clip entitled “We will destroy the prestige of your army,” showing military training of the resistance fighters and a display of their weapons.
For its part, the Al-Quds Brigades said that they bombed with mortar shells a command and control center on the supply line to the Netzarim axis, south of Gaza City, and also bombed the occupation soldiers and their vehicles penetrating the vicinity of Ali Mosque, southwest of the Zaytoun neighborhood.
The Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth said this morning that the army had completed the construction of 4 large military sites along the Netzarim axis, “in preparation for the permanent residence of hundreds of soldiers.”
Meanwhile, sources told Tel Aviv Tribune that Israeli military ambulance crews were working to transport injured soldiers from the axis of the incursion into the Zaytoun neighborhood in Gaza City.
The Israeli army announced that its forces, led by the 99th Division, were operating in the Al-Zaytoun neighborhood in the central Gaza Strip, and that they had eliminated 25 targets in the area last night.
Statistics of the dead in Israel
On the other hand, Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper reported from the Israeli Ministries of Defense and Insurance that since October 7, 2023, 1,533 Israelis have been killed, including 822 civilians and 711 members of the Israeli forces in all sectors.
On that date, the Palestinian resistance carried out Operation Al-Aqsa Flood in response to the occupation’s continuing attacks against the Palestinians, the escalation of incursions into the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque, and the continued siege of Gaza.
Since then, the occupation army has launched a war on Gaza, which UN experts and human rights experts described as a war of extermination and starvation, in which about 35,000 Palestinians were martyred, more than 78,000 were injured, and nearly 70% of the Strip’s infrastructure was destroyed.
