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The Israeli army has been fighting with Hamas in Rafah since the May 7 ground offensive.
Jerusalem:
The Israeli military said on Tuesday that four soldiers were killed in fighting in southern Gaza yesterday, part of its more than eight-month war against Hamas. The army said in a statement that the soldiers were “killed in combat in southern Gaza” on Monday, without specifying the circumstances of their deaths.
Israeli public broadcaster Kan said the soldiers were killed in an explosion in a building in the southern Gaza city of Rafah.
On Monday evening, Hamas’s armed wing, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, said its fighters had “bobby-trapped” a building in the Shabura refugee camp in Rafah.
“Mujahideen in Qassam managed to detonate a bombed-out house inside which a Zionist force was hiding…killing and injuring members of the (Israeli) force,” the group said in a statement. said in a statement.
The Times of Israel reported that seven soldiers were also injured in the blast, five of whom are in critical condition.
It said the latest casualties brought the army’s total number of casualties to 298 since the ground operation in Gaza began on October 27.
The army has been locked in street fighting with Hamas in Rafah since launching its controversial ground offensive on the city on May 7.
Foreign governments, including America’s ally Israel, opposed the operation to protect Palestinian civilians who had taken refuge in the city. More than a million have since fled, seeking refuge wherever they can.
The Gaza war began on October 7 with an unprecedented attack on Israel by Hamas, which killed 1,194 people, mostly civilians, according to AFP figures based on official Israeli figures. .
Israel’s retaliatory military campaign has killed at least 37,124 people in Gaza, mostly civilians, according to the Hamas-ruled territory’s health ministry.
(Other than the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
