The armed wing of the Palestinian group Hamas on Friday said it killed at least four soldiers of the invading Israeli military in Rafah and Gaza City. Hamas also fired rockets at the southern city of Beersheba for the first time since December.
Two soldiers of the 401st Armored Brigade’s 9th Battalion were seriously wounded by RPG fire on a tank in the Rafah area of southern Gaza. The soldiers were killed in Gaza City’s Zeitoun neighbourhood, The Times of Israel reported.
Meanwhile, Israeli tanks have moved onto the main road that splits eastern and western Rafah, effectively surrounding the city’s east. Gaza has been completely cut off from aid since May 7, when Israel took over the Rafah border crossing and moved troops towards the southern city.
In a series of battlefield updates, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades said it ambushed Israeli troops and attacked them with anti-armour missiles and several short-range rockets.
Other attacks across Rafah included blowing up a minefield, firing at three tanks, and bombing the Kerem Shalom and Sufa military sites with rockets and mortar bombs, according to the Qassam Brigades.
“A few days ago, at the last moment, we rescued an enemy prisoner after he attempted to take his life where he was captured,” Qassam Brigades said in an update.
“We hold the enemy and Netanyahu personally fully responsible for the deterioration of the physical and mental health of some enemy prisoners.”
“In 2006 and 2014, the tunnels of Rafah swallowed soldiers Gilad Shalit and Hadar Goldin. Hadar remains in the tunnels after 10 years,” the resistance group warned.
“Today, the Al-Qassam Rafah Battalion is comprised of 4 brigades, led by Sheikh Abu Anas Shabana (whose sons Abdelnasser and Mahmoud were martyred in the October 7th crossing), in addition to brigades of other factions, who today alone carried out dozens of operations east of Rafah,” the military wing added.
Hamish Young, senior emergency coordinator in the Gaza Strip for the UN’s children’s agency, said at a virtual briefing: “For five days, no fuel and virtually no humanitarian aid entered the Gaza Strip, and we are scraping the bottom of the barrel.
“This is already a huge issue for the population and for all humanitarian actors but in a matter of days, if not corrected, the lack of fuel could grind humanitarian operations to a halt,” he added.
