Hamas says its fighters killed 12 Israeli soldiers in 'complex operation'

The Palestinian resistance group Hamas' armed wing, the Al Qassam Brigades, have announced that they killed 12 Israeli soldiers in besieged Gaza's volatile north.

"In a complex operation in the Jabalia refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip, Al-Qassam fighters targeted an Israeli D9 military bulldozer with a Yassin 105 shell and targeted a Zionist [Israeli] force holed up inside a house with two anti-personnel shells and engaged with it," it said in a statement on Wednesday.

"As soon as a rescue force advanced to the location, an explosive device was detonated on a Merkava tank, and after attempting to retrieve the equipment of the targeted force thrown on the ground, the Israeli Air Force bombed the area ruthlessly, and our fighters confirmed the killing of at least 12 Israeli soldiers in the operation," it added.

Earlier on Wednesday, the Israeli army announced that it launched a widescale military operation in the heart of the Jabalia camp, coinciding with another invasion operation continuing east of the city of Rafah in southern Gaza.

It said the operation in Jabalia witnessed "fierce battles," indicating that its forces "confronted dozens of armed cells," referring to Palestinian factions.

'Fierce battles'

Israel has waged a brutal invasion on Gaza since Hamas' October 7 blitz on Israeli military and settlements that were once Arab villages and farms.

Israel has killed more than 35,230 Palestinians since then, mostly women and children, and wounded over 79,140. More than 10,000 Palestinians are feared buried under bombarded debris of buildings.

Some 1.1 million Palestinians in Gaza face catastrophic levels of hunger, on the brink of starvation, and a full-blown famine is under way in the north, according to the UN.

In the occupied West Bank, nearly 500 Palestinians have been killed and thousands wounded since October 7, along with daily arrest by the Israeli occupation army.

Some 80 percent of Gaza's population of 2.4 million Palestinians have fled their homes since the start of Israeli invasion, with many forcibly displaced multiple times.

Israel is accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice, which has ordered Tel Aviv to ensure that its forces do not commit acts of genocide and take measures to guarantee that humanitarian assistance is provided to civilians in the enclave.