Counteroffensive – Gaza Resistance Costs Israel Heavy Casualties on Three Fronts
The Israeli occupation army admitted on Sunday that Palestinian Resistance has cost it the largest number of wounded since the start of the war.
Meanwhile, the Resistance said that it is confronting Israeli forces on three different war fronts, and that it had carried out a series of operations and ambushes throughout the Gaza Strip.
Heavy Casualties
The Israeli army said on Sunday that 50 of its officers and soldiers were wounded during the Gaza battles in a single day.
The wounded include Brigadier General Yogav Bar-Shesht, deputy observer of the Israeli security system, who was wounded in battles in the Zaytoun neighborhood in Gaza City on Friday.
The Times of Israel reported that Shesht, the highest-ranking IDF officer injured during the fighting in Gaza, was taken to the Ichilov Hospital for treatment.
Israeli media reports said he was accompanying the advanced command team of the Nahal infantry brigade in the Zaytoun neighborhood.
The Israeli army is currently carrying out incursions in Jabaliya in the northern Gaza Strip, in the Zaytoun neighborhood in Gaza City and in the eastern neighborhoods of Rafah in the south.
The three operations are taking place under the cover of intensive shelling which resulted in the death and injury of dozens of Palestinians and the displacement of tens of thousands.
The Israeli army spokesman said in a statement that the forces of the 98th Division began, starting last night a military operation in Jabaliya following “intelligence information about Hamas’ recovery of its infrastructure in the area.”
He said that the Israeli air force had attacked about 30 targets before entering Jabaliya.
The spokesman also claimed that forces from the Givati Brigade found a number of tunnel openings and rocket launchers ready for use in the Zaytoun neighborhood of Gaza City.
Resistance Attacks
For its part, the Qassam Brigades, the military wing of the Palestinian Resistance Movement Hamas, announced that it carried out a series of operations and ambushes against the occupation forces since this morning, and that it had shelled Ashkelon and Sderot with several rockets.
Al-Qassam targeted at least eight Israeli tanks, some of which were set ablaze, resulting in the killing and wounding of Israeli soldiers, the group Telegram channel also said.
Al-Qassam broadcast a video of the targeting of one of the Merkava tanks, where an anti-tank missile was dropped by a Resistance drone on the tank east of Jabaliya.
Today, the Resistance also published scenes of several operations, involving mortar shelling, and targeting of Israeli tanks.
Moreover, Al-Qassam announced the implementation of what it described as a complex operation in an area known as al-Mabhouh, east of Jabaliya, where an Israeli Merkava tank was targeted with a Yassin 105 shell.
After “the escape of enemy soldiers to .. a booby-trapped house prepared in advance, (the house) was detonated and the force was killed and wounded,” Al-Qassam said.
In another complex operation, fighters detonated a bomb with an Israeli special force and targeted a personnel carrier with a Tandome shell east of Jabaliya, killing and wounding the force, al-Qassam said.
The group also reported that it targeted an Israeli special force holed up in a house near Mazaya Hall, also east of Jabaliya with two TBG shells, killing and wounding the force.
In another operation, Al-Quds Brigades, the military wing of the Islamic Jihad in Palestine, and the Al-Qassam Brigades carried out a joint heavy mortar shelling on gatherings of the Israeli occupation forces in Al-Zaytoun neighborhood.
Al-Qassam also announced that it bombarded the city of Ashkelon in the afternoon, with several rockets from the area of the incursion by the Israeli army, also east of Jabaliya.
The Israeli settlement of Sderot was also shelled with a rocket barrage in response to the massacres of civilians, the group said in one of its statements.
Battles of Rafah
Al-Qassam was also active in the southern Gaza Strip, as it targeted Israeli soldiers and vehicles that penetrated the area near the Rafah crossing, using mortar shells.
The Al-Quds Brigades also announced that it had fired heavy caliber mortar shells at Israeli occupation soldiers and vehicles in Al-Shoka neighborhood, east of Rafah, where the Israeli army was blowing up Palestinian homes.
About a week ago, the Israeli occupation army launched an attack on the eastern neighborhoods of Rafah, a few hours after Hamas announced its agreement to the mediators’ proposal for a ceasefire and prisoner exchange.
Israeli forces occupied the Palestinian side of the Rafah crossing, halting the movement of humanitarian trucks and evacuations of wounded and sick Palestinians.
(AJA, PC)