The Brigades said in a statement on Telegram that its fighters "detonated an anti-personnel bomb targeting a six-member Zionist infantry force, killing and wounding them, near Al-Zahraa Mosque in the Al-Janina neighborhood east of Rafah." It explained that the operation took place as part of a "well-planned ambush" in which the Israeli force was lured into a previously prepared booby-trapped tunnel. Clashes erupted immediately after the soldiers entered the "hole of the tunnel," before it was blown up.
The Brigades added that its fighters targeted two Israeli tanks with "Yassin 105" shells in the same area, noting that they observed the recovery of dead and wounded Israeli forces from the site.
Later on Sunday, the Israeli occupation army announced the deaths of an officer and a soldier, and the wounding of several other soldiers during the same battle in Rafah. The Hebrew newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth reported that two combat engineering soldiers were also seriously and moderately wounded when an explosive device exploded inside a booby-trapped tunnel during a search operation of a building in the Al-Janina neighborhood.
The operation comes as Israel, with US support, continues to commit genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip since October 7, 2023, resulting in more than 170,000 deaths and injuries, most of them children and women, and more than 11,000 missing, in addition to massive destruction.
According to several international reports, Israel imposes strict military censorship on local media regarding its losses in Gaza, for reasons related to maintaining public morale among Israelis and avoiding negative impact on its domestic front.
These developments come amid the Israeli government, headed by Benjamin Netanyahu, evading implementation of the second phase of the prisoner exchange and ceasefire agreement with Hamas. The agreement began on January 19, 2025, with Qatari-Egyptian mediation and US support, and its first phase ended in early March. Netanyahu resumed the offensive on Gaza on March 18, bowing to pressure from the hardline wing of his right-wing coalition, according to Hebrew media, despite Hamas's continued commitment to the agreement.
