A statement issued by the occupation army on Sunday confirmed the killing of Captain Wam Rafid (23 years old) and Sergeant Yali Sarur (20 years old), both of whom were members of the Yahalom unit of the combat engineering corps.
According to Yedioth Ahronoth, the injuries occurred as a result of an explosion in a booby-trapped tunnel opening during a search operation conducted by an Israeli force inside a building in the Al-Janina neighborhood of Rafah. The incident resulted in the deaths of the officer and the soldier, and the injury of two other members of the unit. The newspaper also reported that a reserve soldier from the 7007th Battalion of the Jerusalem Brigade was seriously injured during clashes in the northern Gaza Strip.
The death toll among the occupation forces since October 7, 2023, has risen to 853 officers and soldiers, including six killed since the resumption of intensive military operations on March 18, according to official data.
It is estimated that 5,758 soldiers and officers were injured during this period, including 2,588 during ground confrontations inside the Gaza Strip.
For its part, Haaretz reported that the number of Israeli soldiers killed in Gaza has reached six since Israel decided to violate the ceasefire. The newspaper quoted sources as saying that a large number of officers and soldiers had notified their commanders of their intention not to engage in combat as part of the expanded Gaza operation.
Martyrs and wounded in continuous raids
Twenty-two Palestinians, including a child and eight women, have been killed since Sunday morning as a result of Israeli airstrikes targeting multiple areas in the Gaza Strip. The raids targeted a house in the Nuseirat refugee camp and a tent for displaced persons in the Al-Mawasi area west of Khan Yunis, in addition to other sites in Khan Yunis and Beit Hanoun.
Fourteen Palestinians have been killed and others injured since dawn on Sunday in Israeli airstrikes targeting homes and tents of displaced people in various areas of the besieged Gaza Strip. Meanwhile, the army has intensified its demolition of homes in the south and north of the Strip, continuing the genocide that has been ongoing for 19 months.
A medical source said that "four Palestinians from the Qannan family were martyred in an Israeli bombardment that targeted a residential apartment in the Al-Mawasi area, west of Khan Yunis," in the southern Gaza Strip.
According to the same source, "A Palestinian woman was killed and others were injured when an Israeli aircraft bombed the Abu Shamala family home in the Al-Amal neighborhood of Khan Yunis."
"A young man from the al-Najjar family was martyred and others were injured when an Israeli drone bombed a tent housing displaced persons in the Wadi Saber area, south of the town of Abasan al-Kabira, east of Khan Yunis," the source said. The medical source also indicated that "three Palestinians died of wounds sustained in previous Israeli raids on Khan Yunis and Beit Hanoun (north)."
He added, "Six Palestinians were injured in a shelling that targeted a tent belonging to the Abu Asi family in Al-Qarara, northeast of Khan Yunis." A medical source reported that "four martyrs, including three women, were killed in the shelling of a tent sheltering displaced persons in the Al-Mawasi area, west of Khan Yunis."
In Rafah, in the south, the Israeli army also carried out bombings of residential buildings, amidst helicopter gunfire north of the city, according to eyewitnesses. In the central Gaza Strip, a medical source reported "a woman was killed and several others were wounded in an Israeli airstrike on the home of the Abu Huwaishel family in the Nuseirat refugee camp."
In the northern Gaza Strip, "two Palestinians were injured in an Israeli attack targeting warehouses in the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood north of Gaza City," according to a medical source. This came as "Israeli artillery intensified its shelling of the eastern areas of the Shujaiya and al-Tuffah neighborhoods," according to eyewitnesses.
According to witnesses, "quadcopter drones fired at civilian homes in the al-Tuffah neighborhood east of Gaza City, while the Israeli army carried out a house-to-house bombing operation in the area."
A humanitarian disaster is spreading in Gaza.
Concurrent with the military escalation, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) called for urgent international action to prevent an "unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe" in the Gaza Strip, given the ongoing comprehensive Israeli blockade.
The agency stated via its X platform that the humanitarian situation in Gaza is "beyond imagination," stressing that the blockade has entered its ninth week, with no signs of easing.
For his part, UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini warned that the blockade is "silently killing" more children and women every day, in addition to the casualties resulting from the bombing. Official sources in Gaza confirmed that the Strip has entered "an advanced stage of famine" due to the complete closure of crossings and the prevention of aid entry since early March.
In this context, the Ministry of Health in the Gaza Strip stated on Sunday that the fuel supplies available to the Strip's hospitals "are sufficient for only three days," and warned that Israel's obstruction of fuel supplies to hospitals "threatens to bring them to a standstill."
The ministry explained in a statement that "the Israeli occupation is preventing international and UN organizations from accessing fuel storage sites designated for hospitals, under the pretext that they are located in red zones." It added, "The available fuel quantities in hospitals are sufficient for only three days."
She noted that hospitals in the Gaza Strip rely on generators to power vital departments, stressing that "obstructing fuel supplies to hospitals threatens to shut them down."
Since the start of the Israeli aggression on October 7, 2023, the death toll in the Gaza Strip has reached 52,495, the majority of whom are children and women. More than 118,000 have been injured, with many bodies trapped under the rubble or in the streets unable to be reached due to the disruption of rescue teams.
