The Al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), announced on Saturday that it successfully lured an Israeli force and detonated a bomb, resulting in the deaths of five soldiers and injuries to others. The incident occurred east of the city of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip. Earlier on the same day, Al-Qassam confirmed that it had killed an additional 15 Israeli soldiers in an operation east of Rafah. They also targeted a tank in the Al-Tanour neighbourhood, located to the east of Rafah in the far south of the Gaza Strip. Additionally, the occupation forces at the Rafah crossing were shelled with mortar rounds. Abu Ubaida, the military spokesperson for the Al-Qassam Brigades, criticized the Israeli leadership, accusing them of recklessly endangering their soldiers. He stated, "Netanyahu would rather have his soldiers killed while searching for remains and bodies than pursue a prisoner exchange that does not align with his political and personal interests." Simultaneously, the Al-Quds Brigades, the military wing of the Islamic Jihad movement, announced that they had responded to the Israeli occupation's actions against the Palestinian people by launching a missile barrage on the city of Ashkelon. In a related context, the Ministry of Health in Gaza said that the Israeli occupation forces committed 9 massacres against families, including 83 dead and 105 injured in hospitals during the past 24 hours, bringing the toll of the Israeli aggression since the seventh of last October to 35,386 dead and 79,366 injured. In another context, Austria announced that it would release funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), which had been withheld after Israeli accusations that employees of the agency had participated in the attack of 7 October. Vienna's decision comes after UNRWA developed an action plan to ensure its neutrality, strengthen its internal reviews, and improve how it monitors its employees.
