The Israeli military temporarily closed its humanitarian aid route in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday after Hamas terrorists launched an RPG at Israeli forces near Rafah in the southern Strip, the Israel Defense Forces said.
“Terrorists fired anti-tank missiles at troops who were operating in the area of eastern Rafah adjacent to the humanitarian route, wounding several soldiers,” the IDF confirmed in a Hebrew-language statement.
“Movement along the humanitarian route has been temporarily halted as the area now constitutes an active combat zone. The Kerem Shalom Crossing and the other entry routes for humanitarian aid are operating as usual,” the military announced.
The attack came a day after seven IDF troops were wounded in Rafah, four seriously.
Also on Monday, senior Hamas operative Muhammad Mahasna was killed in Gaza by an Israeli airstrike. Mahasna was in charge of the terror group’s smuggling operation, according to the IDF, which announced his death on Tuesday.
Mahasna’s death “deals a blow to the Hamas terror organization’s ability to smuggle [weaponry] into Gaza,” the army said in the statement.
Meanwhile, over the past 24 hours the IDF’s 162nd Division eliminated 25 terrorists in the Rafah area, while the Nahal Brigade eliminated “about 10" terrorists and destroyed terror infrastructure, according to the army.
The 16th Infantry “Jerusalem” Brigade and 10th “Harel” Brigade killed some 20 terrorists in the area of the Netzarim Corridor that divides northern and southern Gaza.
IDF ground forces entered the Gaza Strip on Oct. 27 following weeks of airstrikes in response to the Hamas-led Oct. 7 massacre, in which Arab terrorists murdered some 1,200 people, wounded thousands more, and abducted more than 250 men, women and children to the enclave.
The death toll among Israeli troops since the start of the Gaza ground incursion stands at 329, and at 689 on all fronts since Oct. 7, according to IDF data.
In addition, Ch. Insp. Arnon Zamora, of the Border Police’s Yamam National Counter-Terrorism Unit, was fatally wounded in June during a hostage rescue mission in central Gaza, and civilian defense contractor Liron Yitzhak was mortally wounded in the southern Strip in May.
