Hamas claimed responsibility for a “complex ambush against enemy vehicles” in the Tal as-Sultan area, south of Rafah city.
Hamas fighters fired a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) and then ambushed support forces at the scene, killing eight Israeli soldiers traveling in a military vehicle in Rafah.
Saturday’s attack marked one of the deadliest days for Israeli forces in Gaza in recent months, as Israeli forces intensified their ground offensive into southern Gaza.
Hamas’s militant wing, the Qassam Brigades, said in a statement that its fighters “carried out a complex ambush against an enemy vehicle” near the Saudi side of the Tal as-Sultan district in the west of Rafah city.
The militants said they had fired a Yasin-105 RPG at a D9 military bulldozer, killing and wounding several unidentified Israeli soldiers, and that a vehicle carrying a “rescue convoy” arriving later was also attacked, “destroying the vehicle and killing all on board.”
The Israeli army said in a statement that the eight soldiers “fell during operations in southern Gaza” but gave no further details. Israeli army spokesman Daniel Hagari said an investigation would be launched into exactly how the attack happened.
“We are working to disarm all fighters to prevent Hamas from targeting civilians again as it did on October 7. Today we are reminded once again of the high price we are paying for this war. We have soldiers ready to sacrifice their lives to defend Israel,” Hagari said in a televised statement.
At least 307 Israeli soldiers have been killed and thousands wounded since the ground invasion of Gaza began on October 27. At least 37,296 Palestinians – mostly women, children and the elderly – have been killed since the war began on October 7, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.
Saturday’s casualties are likely to stoke calls for a ceasefire and increase Israeli anger. In January, a single attack by Palestinian fighters killed 21 Israeli soldiers in central Gaza.
Rafa’s attack grows
Despite condemnation and denunciations from the international community, Israeli forces continue their incursion and siege of Rafah, where at least 19 Palestinians were killed on Saturday. Hundreds of thousands of desperate civilians without food, water or medicine remain trapped inside the city.
Following the deadly Hamas ambush, air attacks, naval attacks and artillery bombardment of the Tal es-Sultan area intensified.
Mohammad El-Masry, a professor at Doha’s Graduate University, said Saturday’s attack showed that Israel’s stated war objective of destroying Hamas has not been achieved after eight months of fighting.
“The Palestinian resistance is putting up a significant resistance,” he told Al Jazeera, referring to recent news reports citing U.S. intelligence officials that around 70 percent of Hamas’ fighting strength is still intact.
“What’s worse from Israel’s perspective is that Hamas has been able to recruit thousands of new members, so Hamas does not have a personnel problem.”
Gideon Levy, an author and columnist for the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, said the deaths of the eight soldiers were a “heavy price for Israeli society.”
“More and more people in Israel are asking what and for how long? This may become a never-ending war, a war of attrition with Hamas forces, as powerful as the Israeli army, constantly killing and destroying, followed by direct retaliation. It will lead nowhere. This absurd ‘total victory’ that Prime Minister Netanyahu talks about will never be achieved,” Levy told Al Jazeera.
Despite growing international pressure for a ceasefire, an agreement to halt the fighting still seems far away.
A week-long ceasefire in November saw the release of more than 100 Israelis, but repeated attempts to reach a ceasefire have failed and Hamas has insisted on a permanent end to the war and a complete Israeli withdrawal from Gaza. Netanyahu has refused to end the invasion until Hamas has been “eradicated”.
More than 100 prisoners are believed to remain in Gaza, many of them believed to be dead. The Al-Quds Brigades, the militant wing of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, said on Saturday that Gaza residents cannot be taken back unless Israel ends the war and withdraws its troops from the besieged Gaza Strip.
