Hamas’s military wing claims it killed 5 Israeli soldiers in Gaza

Al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas’s military wing, announced Wednesday that five Israeli soldiers in the Gaza Strip were either killed or injured while fighting with the group, Anadolu Agency reports.

“Al-Qassam fighters managed to snipe 3 Zionist soldiers in northern Beit Hanoun in the northern Gaza Strip, and killed 2 Zionist soldiers at point-blank range in the Brazil neighbourhood south-east of Rafah city,” it said in a statement.

The Israeli army later admitted to the death of an officer and two soldiers, and injuries to three others with serious wounds in battles in northern Gaza.

The death toll for Israeli soldiers and officers since the start of the onslaught on 7 October has risen to 634, including 285 in the ground battles that began 27 October, according to the army’s figure.

Earlier Wednesday, Al-Qassam Brigades announced that it killed and injured at least 10 Israeli soldiers, when it targeted “infiltrating forces” north of Beit Hanoun in northern Gaza.

Al-Qassam fighters also targeted “two military bulldozers of type D9 with a Yassin-105 shell and a Shuwaz explosive device in the Brazil neighbourhood on the Palestinian-Egyptian border south-east of Rafah city.”

In the same neighbourhood, the group said it destroyed a Merkava tank with a Yassin-105 shell and targeted an armoured personnel carrier with a Tandem shell in the vicinity of the Salah Al-Din Gate in south-eastern Rafah.

More than 35,700 Palestinians have been killed, the vast majority being women and children, and nearly 80,000 others injured in relentless Israeli attacks since October, following an attack by the Palestinian Resistance group, Hamas.

More than seven months into the Israeli onslaught, vast swathes of Gaza lay in ruins amid a crippling blockade of food clean water and medicine.

Israel stands accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) which, in January, issued an interim ruling that ordered it to stop genocidal acts and take measures to guarantee that humanitarian assistance is provided to civilians in Gaza.

READ: US warns Israel of ‘major insurgency’ if there is ‘full-on’ assault on Rafah