7/5/2024–|Last updated: 5/7/202410:35 PM (Mecca time)
Violent clashes continued between the Palestinian resistance and the Israeli occupation forces in the eastern neighborhoods of the city of Rafah, south of the Gaza Strip. While the Israeli army took control of the Rafah crossing, the resistance factions bombed the Ra’im military base and the settlements surrounding the Gaza Strip.
Tel Aviv Tribune’s correspondent said that the number of martyrs as a result of the Israeli air and artillery bombardment on Rafah neighborhoods since dawn on Tuesday rose to 27 martyrs, and the bombing also caused Abu Youssef Al-Najjar Hospital to go out of work.
The reporter added that the occupation aircraft launched massive raids and violent fire belts on the neighborhoods of Al-Sabra, Al-Jeneina, Al-Salam, Al-Shaboura, Al-Tanur, and the Ashdod camp, while the occupation artillery bombed the Rafah municipality building, causing fires to break out in it.
The Al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), reported that it targeted a Merkava tank with an “Al-Yassin 105” shell, and clashed with Israeli soldiers barricaded inside a building near it in the Al-Shoka neighborhood, east of the city of Rafah.
Al-Qassam also announced the bombing of crowds of Israeli forces east of the city of Rafah with a short-range 114 mm “Rajum” missile system.
The Al-Qassam Brigades added that they bombed the Israeli forces penetrating east of the Rafah crossing with heavy-caliber mortar shells, and also bombed crowds of Israeli forces at the Kerem Shalom military site with a short-range “Rajum” missile system.
In turn, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades said that they bombed with a barrage of mortar shells concentrations of enemy soldiers and vehicles in the Al-Shoka neighborhood, east of the city of Rafah.
Rafah crossing
Earlier on Tuesday, the Israeli army announced its control of the Rafah crossing, and said that its forces were carrying out extensive combing operations in the area.
The occupation army said, in a statement, “The forces of the 401st Brigade achieved operational control over the Rafah crossing from the Gaza side, and separated the crossing from the Philadelphia axis.”
Thus, the occupation forces have penetrated the Salah al-Din “Philadelphia” axis – for the first time since their withdrawal from the Gaza Strip in mid-August 2005 – which is a 14-kilometre-long border strip that separates the Palestinian territories in the Gaza Strip and the Sinai Peninsula, and the peace agreement between Egypt stipulates Israel is to have a “buffer zone” along the border between the two parties.
In the first official comment, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Galant said, “The military operation in Rafah will not stop until Hamas is eliminated or the kidnapped are recovered.”
Galant vowed that the Israeli army would deepen the military operation in Rafah, if a settlement was not reached in order to recover the prisoners, as he put it.
The Gaza Crossings Authority announced the cessation of passenger movement and the entry of aid into the Strip through the Rafah and Kerem Shalom crossings, after Israeli vehicles entered the Rafah crossing this morning and took control of it.
The spokesman for the Crossings Authority said that the reason for closing the Rafah crossing was the presence of Israeli tanks inside it. He added that the Israeli occupation condemned the residents of the Gaza Strip to death after closing the crossing, in light of the collapse of the health system.
Resistance operations
In other field developments, occupation aircraft launched a raid on areas in the city of Deir al-Balah and the Nuseirat camp.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Health said that, during the past 24 hours, the Israeli occupation committed 6 massacres against families in the Gaza Strip, of which 54 martyrs and 96 wounded arrived at hospitals.
Thus, the total number of victims of the Israeli aggression rose to 34,789 martyrs and 87,204 injured, since last October 7.
On the other hand, the Martyr Jihad Jibril Brigades announced that they, in conjunction with the Al-Qassam Brigades, bombed the occupation headquarters in the Netzarim axis in the central Gaza Strip.
For its part, the Al-Qassam Brigades said that it bombed the Ra’im military base, headquarters of the Israeli Gaza Division, with a batch of missiles.
The Al-Quds Brigades – the military wing of the Islamic Jihad movement – announced that it bombed the Gaza Strip and Nir Ishaq with missile salvos.
The brigades also said that they bombed with mortar shells a gathering of occupation soldiers and vehicles in the “Netzarim Corridor,” and that they achieved direct hits and sniped an Israeli soldier east of the Shujaiya neighborhood in Gaza City.
Israeli Channel 12 said that about 30 rockets were fired from Gaza towards the settlements surrounding the Strip since Tuesday morning.
For its part, the occupation army announced that 4 of its soldiers from the elite Givati and Nahal brigades were killed, and 14 wounded, in the bombing that targeted a military base in Kerem Shalom in the Gaza Strip.
The Israeli Soroka Hospital said that it received 10 wounded yesterday in a bombing on the Kerem Shalom site, 3 of whom were in serious condition.
