Members of Unit 669 of the Israeli Air Force prepare an Israeli soldier for evacuation at a beach in the Gaza Strip.   (Photo: AFP)

Gaza City, July 5 (RHC)-- Palestinian resistance fighters have killed at least 10 Israeli troops in a two separate military operations against the enemy forces in Gaza City and Rafah. 

Al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, said in a statement on Friday that the resistance fighters targeted Israel's "military control and command headquarters" in Gaza City's al-Shujaiya neighborhood with short-range missiles and killed one soldier.  

The resistance fighters, the statement said, then advanced toward the building and killed the remaining soldiers at "point-blank range."  The attack, it said, was carried out in conjunction with the al-Nasser Salah al-Deen Brigades, another Palestinian resistance group.  The statement said the Israeli regime’s forces later dispatched a helicopter to evacuate the casualties.

In a separate operation in the Gaza Strip’s southern city of Rafah, a “large number” of Palestinian fighters attacked an Israeli base with grenades, and machine guns, killing and injuring more Israeli forces.   “We targeted the occupation soldiers at the Rafah crossing gate,” the group said. “Our fighters were able to snipe an Israeli soldier in the vicinity of a hill west of Rafah city.”

The resistance fighters, the group said, also targeted Israeli forces and their military vehicles at the border with Egypt with a barrage of mortar shells.

Nine months into the regime’s genocidal war in the Gaza Strip, Israel’s military forces are facing increasing challenges in the Palestinian territory.   Minister of military affairs Yoav Gallant said on Monday that the military “needs 10,000 more soldiers immediately.”

Israel launched a military offensive in the Gaza Strip after it was caught off guard by Hamas's unprecedented operation against the occupied territories in October 2023.

The Israeli regime’s head Benjamin Netanyahu had threatened to “completely destroy” Hamas before the military agreed to end its offensive in Gaza.  He is now under mounting pressure to end the genocidal war both globally and at home with protesters on the streets in large numbers calling for his resignation.

So far, the Israeli military has killed more than 38,000 Palestinians, including thousands of children, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.