CrossFireArabia
The Israeli occupation army acknowledged that one officer and six soldiers were killed in battles in the southern Gaza Strip. Their acknowledgement came after Israeli media reported that four soldiers were killed and 17 wounded in a “complex ambush” in Khan Yunis.
The Israeli army also admitted that 16 other soldiers from the 605th Combat Engineering Battalion were wounded in the Khan Yunis resistance ambush. The army noted that the seven soldiers were completely burned after an explosive device detonated in a Puma armored vehicle in Khan Yunis, and that evacuating them from the scene was difficult.
Israeli media described their deaths as one of the most difficult incidents the army experienced in recent months.
Yedioth Ahronoth reported that an initial investigation revealed that the tanker burned down along with the soldiers inside, and that it took the army hours to identify them after the incident. It noted that the evacuation helicopters returned empty to bases after the army was forced to evacuate the armored personnel carrier and its passengers into Israel.
The newspaper also reported that the army has not yet found the fighters who planted the explosive device. Israeli media reported that fierce fighting took place at the site and that Palestinian resistance fighters targeted the rescue force.
Israeli media reported, Tuesday, that soldiers were missing at the ambush site in Khan Yunis and indicated that the air force was intensifying its flights to evacuate the wounded and attempt to locate the missing soldiers.
The Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, the Hamas military wing, announced that its fighters carried out a complex ambush targeting an Israeli force, killing and wounding its members in Khan Yunis.
The Brigades said via Telegram that its fighters targeted the Israeli force inside a house south of Khan Yunis with an Al-Yasin 105 missile and an RPG, killing and wounding Israeli soldiers.
The developments in Khan Yunis come amid repeated attacks by Palestinian resistance fighters on occupation forces in the southern and northern Gaza Strip.
The Al-Qassam Brigades also announced that they had targeted a Merkava tank south of Khan Yunis. The Brigades stated, via their Telegram account, that they had targeted the tank with a Shawaaz IED and a Yassin 105 shell in the old licensing area south of Khan Yunis.
For its part, the Al-Quds Brigades announced that they had shelled gatherings of Israeli soldiers in the “Western Line” area north of Khan Yunis with mortar shells. They stated that they had observed shells falling among Israeli soldiers and the movement of military vehicles and helicopters to evacuate the dead and wounded. They confirmed that their fighters had destroyed an Israeli military vehicle with a high-explosive device in the center of Khan Yunis, south of the Gaza Strip.
The Al-Qassam Brigades announced earlier today that they had killed three Israeli soldiers in Jabalia, north of the Gaza Strip according to Al Jazeera.
