By Hugo Bachega, MIDDLE EAST
Eight Israeli soldiers were killed in a blast in southern Gaza on Saturday, Israel’s military said, the deadliest incident for the army in the war since January.
The soldiers were in an
armoured vehicle that was hit by a major explosion that, according to a
preliminary investigation, detonated explosive “engineering material”, the army
said.
The incident happened during
an operation in the Tal al-Sultan neighbourhood of Rafah, which has been a key
target for Israeli forces in recent weeks.
Earlier, the armed wing of
Hamas said it had fired a rocket towards an armoured vehicle after setting up
an ambush.
The soldiers were returning
from an overnight operation in Rafah's Tal al-Sultan neighbourhood at around
05:15 local time (03:15 BST) when their armoured vehicle is understood to have
exploded.
Israeli media reported that
Israeli forces had killed 50 fighters in that operation, and Gaza's Hamas-run
health ministry said 30 Palestinians have been killed in the past day.
Seven of the eight soldiers
have been named so far, Israeli media reported on Sunday morning.
Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu said Israel had paid "a heart-rending price in our just war in
defense of our homeland", but said his country would continue fighting
this war "to ensure our existence and our future".
Defence Minister Yoav Gallant
also expressed his sorrow, saying "the pain that comes with such loss is
immense".
Israeli ground troops are
continuing to operate in Rafah to oust Hamas from what it calls its “last major
stronghold”.
Aid agencies have warned of a
dire humanitarian situation in Rafah, where the UN says around one million
Palestinians are taking refuge.
On Wednesday, World Health
Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said a significant
proportion of Gaza's population was facing "catastrophic hunger and
famine-like conditions".
Several world leaders,
including US President Joe Biden, have urged Israel not to conduct a full-scale
assault on Rafah.
The Hamas-run health ministry
says more than 37,000 Palestinians have been killed since the start of the war,
and many hundreds of thousands more have been injured or displaced.
The war began after Hamas
attacked Israel on 7 October, killing about 1,200 people and taking 251 others
back to Gaza as hostages.
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