Eight Israeli soldiers were killed in southern Gaza on Saturday, the Israeli military said.
At around 05:15 local time (03:15 BST), the soldiers were returning from a night operation in the Tal al-Sultan neighborhood of Rafah when their armored vehicle was reported to have exploded.
In a statement from
According to the Gaza health ministry, which is run by Hamas, 30 Palestinians have been killed in the past day.
Israeli ground forces continue operations in Rafah to drive Hamas out of what it calls its “last major stronghold”.
Earlier on Saturday, Hamas said in a statement on Telegram that the group fired a rocket at an Israeli army bulldozer and then fired a second rocket at arriving reinforcements.
The deaths of the eight soldiers mark the deadliest death toll by Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip since January.
Aid agencies have warned that the humanitarian situation in Rafah is dire, and the United Nations says about one million Palestinians are seeking refuge.
On Wednesday, World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said a large proportion of Gaza’s population faced “catastrophic hunger and famine-like conditions.”
Many world leaders, including U.S. President Joe Biden, have urged Israel not to launch a full-scale attack on Rafah.
The Hamas-run health ministry says more than 37,000 people have been killed and hundreds of thousands injured or displaced since the war began.
The war began after Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, killing about 1,200 people and taking another 251 people back to Gaza as hostages.
