GAZA CITY, Palestine

Palestinian resistance group Hamas on Monday claimed a mortar attack on Israeli forces at the Netzarim Corridor in the central Gaza Strip.

The group’s armed wing, the Qassam Brigades, said that its fighters had fired mortar shells at Israeli soldiers stationed at the corridor in the central town of al-Mughraqa.

No further details were provided by the Palestinian group.

There was no comment from the Israeli army on the claim.

Named after the Netzarim settlement, dismantled in Gaza in 2005, the Israeli army built the seven-kilometer-long corridor to separate northern Gaza from its southern part.

A similar attack was carried out by Hamas fighters on Sunday.

Israel has waged a brutal offensive on the Gaza Strip since a cross-border attack by Hamas on Oct. 7 last year, which Tel Aviv says killed nearly 1,200 people.

Nearly 34,500 Palestinians have since been killed, mostly women and children, and over 77,600 others injured amid mass destruction and severe shortages of necessities.

According to Israeli military figures, at least 606 soldiers have been killed and 3,310 others injured since the outbreak of the Gaza conflict on Oct. 7.

More than six months into the Israeli war, vast swathes of Gaza lay in ruins, pushing 85% of the enclave’s population into internal displacement amid a crippling blockade of food, clean water and medicine, according to the UN.

Israel stands accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice. An interim ruling in January ordered Tel Aviv to stop genocidal acts and take measures to guarantee that humanitarian assistance is provided to civilians in Gaza.

*Writing by Ahmed Asmar