File Photo: Israeli soldiers during military operations in the Gaza Strip. AFP
In a statement, Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, warned Tel Aviv: “We say to the enemy leadership that Gaza will not be easy prey for your army, and we are ready to send the lives of your soldiers to hell.”
Israeli media reported that an Improvised Explosive Device killed a major and three lieutenants and wounded three other soldiers, one seriously and two moderately.
The four dead in Rafah were the first Israeli military deaths reported since Israel started its assault on Gaza City to ethnically cleanse more than 1.2 million Palestinians from the north to the south of the strip.
The Palestinian resistance movement warned that the expansion of the Israeli assault on Gaza City would put Israeli captives at risk.
“The enemy captives are distributed inside neighbourhoods of Gaza City and we will not safeguard their lives as long as Netanyahu has decided to kill them,” said Al-Qassam.
“Starting the criminal operation in Gaza City and expanding it means that the enemy will not obtain any prisoner, alive or dead.”
“The enemy is entering a war of attrition that will cost it additional numbers of killed and captured ... The enemy’s bulldozers will be targets for our fighters and a cause for increasing the numbers of prisoners we hold,” added Al-Qassam.
At least 908 Israeli soldiers have been killed in the Gaza war since 7 October 2023, according to the army, which said they were the “war casualties whose names have been cleared for publication.”
Many more are believed to have been killed, but Israel does not disclose the real figures.
The Israeli genocidal war on Gaza, now nearing its third year, has killed more than 65,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injured over 165,000 others, and destroyed most of the strip.
The Israeli blockade on the entry of all humanitarian aid to 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza has forced the UN to declare famine in the strip, the first ever in the Middle East.
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