AN explosion in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip has killed and injured Israeli troops from the Golani Brigade, who were detonating a building, according to Israeli websites.
There is currently an Israeli media blackout on the incident on Thursday and there has been no official comment from the government there yet.
Witnesses in Rafah told Al Jazeera of a large explosion, and Israeli helicopters trying to evacuate the wounded. There has been heavy fighting in the area, they said.
Al Jazeera’s Tareq Abu Azzoum, reports from Deir el-Balah, in central Gaza, that Hamas’s armed wing, the Qassam Brigades says it is engaging in “fierce point-blank clashes and confrontations with Israeli occupation forces operating in the El Geneina neighbourhood east of Rafah city”.
“There are more reports that a number of Israeli forces are trapped under the rubble of a building that had been previously rigged by explosives by Hamas in Rafah city. This has been a tactic that has been used by Hamas fighters to ambush Israeli ground forces”, Azzoum added.
Later the Qassam Brigades released this statement: “As part of the ‘Gates of Hell’ operations, we detonated a powerful explosive device targeting a patrol of 7 soldiers near the Omar Ibn Al-Khattab Mosque in Al-Tannour neighborhood, east of Rafah. We observed the dismembered bodies of several Israeli soldiers at the scene.”
Israeli Forces were said to be facing difficulties in evacuating the dead and injured from the site due to the intensity of the fighting. Footage broadcast by Israeli sources showed some helicopters ferrying soldiers to hospitals.
Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud, reporting from Gaza City said: “The available information talks about a group of Israeli soldiers – this is part of the occupying forces in the city of Rafah – and they were in the process of placing explosive wires as part of the ongoing, systematic demolition of homes across Rafah City, where the vast majority of buildings were destroyed so far since the invasion of Rafah City.”
Mahmood also said that “eyewitnesses describe seeing military choppers moving along the borderline. They patrolled the area several times before landing in Rafah City. They also reported massive, heavy machine guns and explosions that kept going on for some time before it got quieter.”
In the meantime, Israeli air strikes have killed at least 16 Palestinians across the Gaza Strip, following a deadly 24-hour period in which more than 100 people lost their lives, according to medical officials.
New strikes on Thursday killed at least three people in separate attacks in Deir el-Balah and the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, Al Jazeera Arabic reported, quoting medical sources. In Shujayea, east of Gaza City, shelling killed another person and wounded several others.
