TEHRAN, Jan. 02 (MNA) – The Al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of the Hamas Resistance movement, has said its combatants have killed five Israeli soldiers on the battlefield in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday.

Al-Qassam also said on Tuesday that it targetted and destroyed a Merkava tank of the Israeli army using an Al-Yassin 105 rocket near the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza, Palestinian sources reported.

The Israeli army dispatched a second helicopter to evacuate soldiers wounded on the battlefield in southern Gaza.

The confrontation between Israeli soldiers and Palestinian fighters comes as the Israeli army is expanding its ground offensive into refugee camps in central and southern Gaza.

Additionally, the Al-Quds Brigades, the military wing of Islamic Jihad, said it launched a rocket attack on gathering points of the Israeli forces in the central city of Khan Yunis in southern Gaza.

At least 22,185 Palestinians have been killed and 57,035 other wounded since the Israeli regime launched the devastating war on Gaza on October 7, the Gaza Ministry of Health said.

MNA