Khaberni - The Israeli occupation army announced today, Friday, that it executed an airstrike last night on "eight armed elements detected exiting a tunnel east of Rafah, resulting in the death of three of them".
The army said in a statement that additional airstrikes were carried out on the areas to which the remaining militants had attempted to flee, and the results are currently being assessed. It mentioned that its forces continue combing operations in the area to determine the locations of all militants.
The Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) spoke at the end of 2025 about negotiations it had conducted with mediators regarding allowing about 200 fighters from the Al-Qassam Brigades - the military wing of Hamas - trapped in a tunnel in Rafah to safely exit, without an Israeli response.
The file remains unresolved despite developments witnessed in the Gaza ceasefire agreement with the announcement by US President Donald Trump of the start of its second phase in mid-January.
Israeli media revealed conflicting dates for the reopening of the Rafah border crossing between the Gaza Strip and Egypt, with the latest being next Sunday.
The website "Walla" quoted an official in the Israeli army saying that the crossing will be opened next Sunday for pedestrians in both directions, and added that the Israeli army received instructions to prepare for its opening.
Since May 2024, Israel has occupied the Palestinian side of the crossing, as part of a genocide war it started in the Gaza Strip in October 2023 and lasted two years.
It is worth noting that since the ceasefire came into effect on 11 October last year, Israeli forces have killed 508 Palestinians and injured 1356 others, according to the Palestinian Center for Media.
The agreement ended the Israeli genocide war on the Gaza Strip, which lasted two years, resulting in more than 71,000 martyrs and over 171,000 Palestinian injuries, and massive destruction affecting 90% of the infrastructure with reconstruction costs estimated by the United Nations at about 70 billion dollars.
