Qassam Brigades, the military wing of the Palestinian Hamas resistance movement, has hailed a complex ambush against the Israeli military in Gaza’s far-southern city of Rafah, saying the operation once again exposed the regime’s failure in the face of Palestinian fighters.

“Our complex and qualitative operation today in Rafah is a new confirmation of the enemy’s failure in the face of our resistance, and a painful blow to its army… and we have more,” Abu Obeida, a spokesman for the al-Qassam Brigades, said in a statement on Saturday.

He noted that Gaza-based resistance fighters will continue their “painful strikes” wherever necessary and that Israeli occupation forces will find nothing but ambushes of death in any part of the Palestinian territories.

Earlier in the day, Hamas fighters killed eight Israeli soldiers after firing rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) at their military vehicles in Rafah, and then ambushing a support force deployed to the scene.

The attack marked one of the deadliest days for Israeli soldiers in Gaza in months as its ground invasion of the southern region continues to ramp up.

Qassam Brigades said its soldiers “carried out a complex ambush against enemy vehicles” in the Saudi neighborhood of Tal as-Sultan district in Rafah city.

The armed group said it fired Yassin-105 RPGs at a D9 military bulldozer, killing and wounding an unidentified number of Israeli soldiers. 

A “rescue force” vehicle that later arrived was also attacked, “resulting in its destruction and the death of all its occupants”, it pointed out.

At least 307 Israeli troops have reportedly been killed and thousands wounded since October 27 when the ground invasion of Gaza was launched.

Israel unleashed the Gaza onslaught on October 7 after Hamas-led Palestinian resistance groups carried out Operation al-Aqsa Storm against the occupying entity in retaliation for its intensified atrocities against the Palestinian people.

The Tel Aviv regime has so far killed at least 37,296 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injured 85,197 others, according to the Gaza-based health ministry. 

The occupying entity has also imposed a “complete siege” on the territory, cutting off fuel, electricity, food, and water to the more than two million Palestinians living there.