GAZA, (PIC)
The Israeli occupation forces (IOF) admitted the killing of four Israeli soldiers and the injury of five others in an ambush set up on Tuesday by the Al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, in Rafah, south of the Gaza Strip.
The Al-Qassam Brigades reportedly blew up a building in Rafah that contained an Israeli force, using a highly explosive device, which led to the immediate death of four soldiers, including a military paramedic.
The Israeli Channel 12 reported that the Sergeant Ajam Naim, 20, was among the killed soldiers in Rafah. She is a paramedic in the 52nd Battalion and the first female soldier to be announced dead since the start of the ground operation in the Gaza Strip.
According to the IOF correspondent, the soldiers were exposed to heavy gunfire by Palestinian resistance fighters after the explosion.
Israeli military helicopters landed in the Al-Ezba area, west of Rafah, to evacuate the dead and wounded, amid heavy flying of Israeli warplanes at a low altitude west of the city, according to Aljazeera.
Meanwhile, the IOF also fired smoke bombs in the area where the evacuation took place.
With the killing of the four soldiers in the Rafah ambush, the number of Israeli soldiers and officers who have been killed since the start of the war on the Gaza Strip has risen to 714, according to official Israeli sources, while resistance sources confirm that the number is much higher.
