CAIRO, Feb 9 (Reuters) – Israeli forces killed four militants in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on Monday after they emerged from an underground tunnel and opened fire on troops, Israel’s military said.
It described the attack on Israeli troops as a violation of the U.S.-brokered ceasefire with the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas that went into force in Gaza last October and said it views it with the “utmost gravity.”
Israel has responded to similar incidents in recent months by carrying out airstrikes across the enclave in which dozens of people have been killed.
There was no immediate comment from Hamas, but some sources close to the group identified one of those killed as Anas Annashar, the son of a former senior Hamas politician.
Dozens of Hamas fighters have been trapped in tunnels under Rafah since the ceasefire, and some have since been killed in clashes with Israeli forces.
In a separate incident, Israeli forces shot and killed a Palestinian farmer in Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip, according to local health authorities.
Israel did not immediately comment on the incident.
Violence has repeatedly shaken the ceasefire and the two sides have traded blame over truce violations as Washington presses them to proceed to the next phases of the ceasefire deal, meant to end the conflict for good.
The next phase of President Donald Trump’s Gaza plan calls for resolving complex issues such as Hamas disarmament, which the group has long rejected, a further Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and the deployment of an international peacekeeping force.
The Gaza health ministry said at least 580 Palestinians had been killed by Israeli fire since the October ceasefire deal was agreed. Israel says four soldiers had been killed by militants in Gaza over the same period.
The Gaza war started with the October 7, 2023 Hamas attacks on southern Israel that killed more than 1,200 people. The death toll in Gaza now stands at over 71,000, according to Palestinian health ministry data.
(Reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi, Editing by Timothy Heritage)
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