CAIRO/JERUSALEM >> Israeli forces killed 45 Palestinian fighters in Gaza over the past day, the military said today, after heavy fighting in which militant group Hamas said it destroyed two armored personnel carriers during an ambush near the city of Rafah.

The Israeli military said the Hamas official in charge of smuggling operations was among those killed and that his death significantly hit their ability to bring weapons and military equipment into the besieged enclave.

Today, air strikes killed five Palestinians in the Al-Bureij camp, in the central Gaza Strip, medics said, while two others were killed in a separate air strike in Rafah, near the southern Gaza border with Egypt.

A subsequent Israeli strike killed two Palestinians in Rafah, medics said, and another killed five other people in Khan Younis, including local journalist Mohammad Abu Saada.

Abu Saada’s death brought to 166 the number of Palestinian journalists killed by Israeli fire since Oct 7, the Hamas-run Gaza government media office said in a statement.

In Deir Al-Balah, in the central Gaza Strip, three Israeli missiles hit near a mosque wounding dozens of people, health officials said,

Hamas-led fighters set off the Gaza war last October when they rampaged through Israeli communities around the Gaza Strip, in a surprise attack, killing 1,200 Israelis and foreigners and seizing some 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.

In response, Israel has conducted a relentless assault on Gaza that has reduced much of the heavily populated coastal strip to ruins, killed 39,653 Palestinians and wounded 91,535 others, according to Gaza health ministry figures.

The figure does not distinguish between fighters and civilians but Israeli authorities estimate their forces have killed or incapacitated some 14,000 fighters, around half the total Hamas force estimated at the start of the war. Hamas does not provide casualty numbers for its fighters.

MULTI-FRONT THREAT

In other action, Hamas’ armed wing said its fighters destroyed the two Israeli troop carriers in an ambush east of Rafah, where heavy fighting has been reported for weeks. There was no confirmation from the Israeli military.

The territory’s health ministry said Israeli military strikes have killed at least 30 Palestinians and wounded 66 others in the past 24 hours.

“Many victims are still under the rubble and on the roads, where the teams of the ambulance and civil emergency service can’t reach,” the ministry said in a statement.

With Israel braced for a possible attack in the north by Iran and the Iranian-backed Hezbollah group, it faces a multi-front threat, 10 months after the start of the war in Gaza.

In the larger Palestinian territory, the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Israeli forces also killed at least eight people today and overnight.

Most of Gaza’s population has been displaced multiple times since the start of the war and the fighting has brought misery to thousands trapped in overcrowded tent shelters.

Residents said Israeli tank shelling continued overnight in Bureij, Al-Maghazi, Nuseirat, and Deir Al-Balah, in the central Gaza Strip, where tens of thousands of displaced families from all over the enclave have sought temporary refuge.

Residents and Hamas media said tanks made a brief advance earlier today in Al-Zahra City northwest of Nuseirat.