Today, Tuesday, the Israeli occupation army announced that 9 of its officers and soldiers were killed and 27 others were wounded in the ongoing battles in Gaza, and said that it had expanded its operations south of the Strip, while violent clashes broke out north of it.

The occupation army acknowledged these additional losses in two batches, and said that officers and soldiers were killed during the past 24 hours in clashes in the center and south of the Gaza Strip, where fighting is concentrated between the resistance and Israeli forces.

In addition to the nine dead, the Israeli army said that 27 soldiers were injured during the past 24 hours in the Gaza Strip.

For its part, the Israeli Broadcasting Corporation said that 5 of the dead soldiers were killed in the explosion of a truck that contained explosive materials prepared to destroy tunnels in Gaza, while Israeli media reported that 30 officers and soldiers were injured in the explosion.

This brings the announced number of dead Israeli soldiers to 191 since the start of the ground operation in Gaza on October 27, and the total number rises to 519 since Operation Al-Aqsa Flood.

Israeli sources revealed last night that 9 soldiers were killed and others wounded in two Palestinian resistance operations, and the official announcement of these losses was delayed until Tuesday.

The sources said that one of the two attacks led to the explosion of ammunition in a military truck, killing and wounding soldiers, noting that the other attack was the bombing of a building in which soldiers were stationed in the south of the Gaza Strip.

The Israeli sources added that the announcement of the dead is considered the hardest on the army since the beginning of the war.

Prior to revealing these new Israeli losses, the Al-Qassam Brigades - the military wing of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) - announced that it had thwarted an Israeli attempt to free prisoners after a special force infiltrated the Bureij camp in the central Gaza Strip.

Qassam Brigades operations

Meanwhile, the Al-Qassam Brigades announced on Tuesday that its fighters targeted an Israeli force with an anti-personnel device, killing and wounding it in Bani Suhaila, east of Khan Yunis, in the southern Gaza Strip.

Also in Khan Yunis, the Brigades said that they destroyed an Israeli Merkava tank with an “Al-Yassin 105” shell, adding that the fire caught fire in the vehicle, which is classified as among the most fortified tanks in the world and the strongest on the battlefield.

The military wing of the Hamas movement also announced that its fighters sniped 4 Israeli soldiers with a Ghoul Qassam rifle east of the Bureij refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip.

Yesterday, Monday, the Brigades broadcast pictures of a missile launch from the northern Gaza Strip towards Tel Aviv, 94 days after the start of the war.

Khan Yunis and the north

Meanwhile, Al Jazeera's correspondent reported violent explosions in the northeastern areas of the Gaza Strip.

Anadolu News Agency said that violent clashes broke out between the occupation forces and the Palestinian resistance in the northern Gaza Strip for the first time in more than a week.

The agency added that the clashes began at dawn and continued for hours in Jabalia and Beit Hanoun in the far north of the Strip.

This development refutes the Israeli army’s repeated claims that it has extended its control over the region and eliminated resistance capabilities there