Illustrative image.
The al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of the Hamas Movement, shared on July 5 video footage documenting a deadly attack that targeted an armored formation of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) in the city of Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip a day earlier.
The footage shows Hamas fighters blowing up a Merkava Mk.4M main battle tank with a large high-explosive anti-tank charge, then targeting several other tanks with rocket-propelled grenades and assault rifles. The first tank took heavy damage.
The IDF had mourned two soldiers on July 4, including a tanker from the 53rd Armored Battalion of the 188th Brigade who was killed in Khan Younis.
Since the start of the large-scale offensive against the Hamas Movement in Gaza, codenamed “Operation Gideon’s Chariots,” the IDF has lost 25 troops.
Israel launched Operation Gideon’s Chariots in May after calling up tens of thousands of reservists. The IDF said at the time that it wants to occupy 75 percent of Gaza in two months. As of July 4, at least 65 percent of the Strip had been captured, according to the military.
If the operation goes on as planned, more than two million Palestinians will be crammed in three isolated small zones in the southern, central and northern parts of the Strip.
The United States, working with Qatar and Egypt, presented in recent days a proposal for a new ceasefire and prisoner exchange deal, which was reportedly received positively by Hamas.
Israel’s position on the proposal remains unclear, but it is possible that the country will only accept the deal after the IDF completes its operation which could take a few days, or weeks. Even then, this won’t likely be the end of Israel’s war on Gaza which has so far claimed the lives of nearly 60,000 Palestinians.
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