The blast took place at 5:15 a.m. local time, he said, and was probably caused by “a planted explosive device in the area or anti-tank missile fire.”
“The explosion was significant,” Hagari said, adding that the military was still investigating. “There was very serious damage to the vehicle and those in it … making it difficult to identify and locate the bodies.”
Hamas’s armed wing, the Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades, claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement Saturday, saying it launched a homegrown anti-armor missile at the vehicle.
The IDF began military operations in Rafah last month, vowing to dismantle what it said was Hamas’s four remaining battalions. Israeli troops seized the border crossing with Egypt and displaced nearly 1 million people who sought refuge in Rafah after fleeing bombardment elsewhere in Gaza.
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It was unclear whether Saturday’s attack would affect the offensive. The incident, plus the death of an Israeli soldier who was injured in Rafah on Monday, brought the total number of Israeli soldiers killed in Gaza to 306.
Israel continues to carry out strikes and raids across Gaza, including on June 8 when troops launched an operation to rescue four hostages from Hamas captivity in Nuseirat in central Gaza.
More than 270 Palestinians were killed in the raid. At least 37,296 people have been killed in Gaza since the war began, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants but says the majority of the casualties are women and children.
At a rally in Tel Aviv on Saturday, one of the rescued hostages, Andrey Kozlov, addressed the crowd via video message. Hostage families and their supporters have held weekly demonstrations to urge the government to reach a cease-fire deal with Hamas.
“For the hostages that are still in Gaza, there is one decision, only one,” Koslov said. “It is a deal between Israel and Hamas. I ask them to bring them home as soon as possible.”
A somber mood was also cast across Gaza on Saturday as Muslim families prepared for the upcoming Eid al-Adha holiday marking the end of the Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca.
But food and clean water remain scarce, residents and aid agencies say, and many families are also observing the holiday without their loved ones who were killed in the war.
People in Gaza are “eating pigeon food” to survive, the Doctors Without Borders humanitarian group said Saturday, while World Food Program Deputy Executive Director Carl Skau said at least 1 million people in southern Gaza are “trapped, without clean water or sanitation.”
“From the south to the northernmost tip of the Strip, people are traumatised and exhausted,” Skau wrote on X. “The level of destruction is shocking. And the challenges our staff are facing when doing their life-saving work are like nothing I have ever seen.”
Many Muslims will fast Saturday in solidarity with those on the Hajj pilgrimage in Mecca. On Sunday, over a billion Muslims across the world will celebrate Eid al-Adha, commemorating the sacrifice that Ibrahim was prepared to make of his son Ismail, as recounted in the Quran.
“Last year, there was joy, families were together,” said Omar Abu Nada, a 30-year-old in Gaza City. “This year, the basic components of life are nowhere to be found. … Children cannot play. There is nothing at all. Last year there was life; this year we are alive but dead.”
“There is no Eid. There is no meat. There is no joy,” said Yahya Almahdoun, a 45-year-old resident of northern Gaza.
It is customary to slaughter sheep during Eid al-Adha and give meat to the hungry. But, he said, at the local place where people bought the animals before the war, “there’s not one single sheep.”
“The person who used to sell sheep can’t even find food to feed his family,” Almahdoun said.
Marwan Abu Nassar, administrative director at al-Awda Hospital in the Nuseirat area of Gaza, said that despite the challenges last year, Eid “was many times better. There was stability and calm. There was no overcrowding. There was good food and water.”
“The current situation is completely different now,” he said. “There is only death, destruction, hunger and disease.”
The Biden administration announced sanctions against an extremist Israeli group that has been blocking aid convoys into Gaza. For several months, Tsav 9, a group with ties to West Bank settlers and Israeli military reservists, has been attacking and impeding aid convoys. Friday’s sanctions were a bid to halt activity that U.S. officials say is inflaming tensions between Israelis and Palestinians and worsening the already grim circumstances for civilians in the enclave.
U.S. Central Command said it had “successfully destroyed two Houthi uncrewed surface vessels in the Red Sea” late Friday, as well as a drone launched from a Houthi-controlled area of Yemen. “It was determined these systems presented an imminent threat to U.S., coalition forces, and merchant vessels in the region,” said Centcom.
Suliman reported from London, El Chamaa reported from Beirut, Soroka reported from Tel Aviv and Pietsch reported from Washington. Hazem Balousha in Cairo and Alon Rom in Tel Aviv contributed to this report.
