JERUSALEM/CAIRO (Reuters) – Eight Israeli soldiers were killed in an explosion in the southern Gaza Strip on Saturday, and at least 19 Palestinians were killed in Israeli strikes, military sources said and medical.
The IDF did not specify the circumstances of the death of the eight soldiers, but the armed wing of Hamas, the al-Qassam Brigades, had previously announced that “a certain number” of Israeli soldiers traveling aboard an armored vehicle had been killed or wounded in an ambush in the southern town of Rafah.
The ambush occurred, she said, in the Tel al-Sultan area, which houses a refugee camp in western Rafah, where Israeli troops have been gradually advancing for weeks.
The Israeli air force bombed two houses on the outskirts of Gaza City, killing at least 15 people, according to medical sources. Four other people were killed in separate attacks in the South.
The Israeli army said on Saturday that it had seized large quantities of weapons in Rafah.
At least 37,296 Palestinians, including around thirty in the last 24 hours, have been killed since the start of the conflict between Hamas and Israel in the Gaza Strip on October 7, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health.
(Reporting Nidal al-Mughrabi, Maayan Lubell, James Mackenzie)
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