GAZA CITY, Palestine

Palestinian resistance group Hamas claimed Sunday to have killed six Israeli soldiers in a bomb explosion in the central Gaza Strip.

The group’s armed wing, the Qassam Brigades, said several other soldiers were injured when an anti-personnel bomb was detonated in Juhor al-Deek town, south of Gaza City.

Hamas said its fighters also attacked three Israeli tanks with anti-armor shells in Qasa’ib and Jabalia al-Balad in the northern Gaza Strip.

The claim came hours after the Israeli army said that 14 soldiers were killed in clashes with Palestinian fighters in the Gaza Strip in the past 24 hours.

Early Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to continue the Gaza war despite its “very heavy price” on the army.

Israel has pounded the Gaza Strip since a cross-border attack by Hamas on Oct. 7, killing at least 20,424 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injuring 54,036 others, according to health authorities in the enclave.

Around 1,200 Israelis are believed to have been killed in the Hamas attack.

The Israeli onslaught has left Gaza in ruins with half of the coastal territory's housing stock damaged or destroyed, and nearly 2 million people displaced within the densely-populated enclave amid shortages of food and clean water.

*Writing by Mohammad Sio in Ankara