Hamas says it carried out ‘a complex ambush against enemy vehicles’ in Tal as-Sultan district of southern Rafah city.
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| Troops on the ground in an unidentified location in the Gaza Strip |
Hamas fighters killed eight Israeli soldiers in Rafah by attacking military vehicles with rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) and then ambushing a support force deployed to the scene.
The attacks on Saturday marked one of the deadliest days for Israeli soldiers in Gaza in months, as the ground invasion of the southern region continues to escalate. The Qassam Brigades, Hamas’s armed wing, stated that its fighters “carried out a complex ambush against enemy vehicles” in the Saudi neighborhood of Tal as-Sultan district in western Rafah city.
The armed group reported that it fired Yassin-105 RPGs at a D9 military bulldozer, resulting in the deaths and injuries of an unspecified number of Israeli soldiers. A “rescue force” vehicle that arrived later was also attacked, “resulting in its destruction and the death of all its occupants.”
The Israeli army confirmed in a statement that eight soldiers “fell during operational activity in southern Gaza,” without providing further details. Daniel Hagari, Israel’s military spokesperson, announced an investigation into the specifics of the attack.
“We’re working to disarm all the fighters to prevent Hamas from targeting civilians again as they did on October 7. Today, we received another reminder of the high price we are paying because of this war, and we have soldiers ready to sacrifice their lives to defend Israel,” Hagari said in a televised statement.
Since the ground invasion of Gaza began on October 27, at least 307 Israeli troops have been killed and thousands wounded. According to Gaza’s health ministry, at least 37,296 Palestinians – mostly women, children, and elderly – have died since the war began on October 7.
Saturday’s casualties are likely to intensify calls for a ceasefire and increase public anger in Israel. In January, 21 Israeli troops were killed in a single attack by Palestinian fighters in central Gaza.
Rafah Assault Intensifies
Despite international condemnation, Israeli forces continue their advance into Rafah, where at least 19 Palestinians were killed on Saturday. Hundreds of thousands of civilians, lacking food, water, and medicine, remain trapped in the city. Air, sea, and artillery attacks on the Tal as-Sultan area intensified following the deadly Hamas ambush.
Mohamad Elmasry, a professor at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies, stated that Saturday’s attack highlights the challenge Israel faces in achieving its goal of destroying Hamas after eight months of combat.
“The Palestinian resistance fighters have put up quite a fight,” he told Al Jazeera, referencing a recent report quoting US intelligence officials saying about 70 percent of Hamas’s fighting force remains intact.
“From an Israeli perspective, what’s even worse is Hamas has been able to recruit thousands of new members, so there’s no manpower issue for Hamas.”
Gideon Levy, an author and columnist for the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, commented that the deaths of eight soldiers is a “heavy price for Israeli society.”
“More and more people in Israel are asking what for and until when? This might become an endless war – a war of attrition in which, despite Israel’s military strength, Hamas forces can always kill and sabotage, leading to direct retaliation. It leads nowhere. We’ll never achieve this ridiculous ‘total victory’ that Prime Minister Netanyahu speaks about,” Levy told Al Jazeera.
Despite increasing international pressure for a ceasefire, an agreement to halt the fighting seems distant.
Since a weeklong truce in November that freed more than 100 Israelis, repeated attempts to arrange a ceasefire have failed, with Hamas insisting on a permanent end to the war and a full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza. Netanyahu refuses to end the invasion before Hamas is “eradicated.”
More than 100 captives are believed to remain in Gaza, though many are thought to be dead. The armed wing of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, al-Quds Brigades, said on Saturday that Israel could only regain its people if it ends the war and withdraws troops from the besieged enclave.
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