Israel's military said Monday that ground forces mounted limited raids into the Gaza Strip overnight to fight Palestinian resistance groups and rescue hostages.
It also added that airstrikes were being focused on sites where Hamas members were assembling.
In a televised briefing, chief military spokesperson Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said 222 people had now been confirmed as taken hostage during Hamas's Oct. 7 cross-border incursion.
Earlier Sunday, one Israeli soldier was killed Sunday during a similar raid into the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, the military said.
Israeli troops have been conducting raids across the border, which the military says are meant to clear the area and gather intelligence about missing people and captives being held by Hamas in the enclave.
"An IDF (Israel Defense Forces) soldier was killed, one was moderately injured, and two were lightly injured as a result of an anti-tank missile launched toward an IDF tank and an engineering vehicle," the military said.
Also Sunday, Hamas claimed that it had destroyed an Israeli tank and two bulldozers in an ambush east of the city of Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip.
In a brief statement viewed by Anadolu, the Palestinian resistance group's Al-Qassam Brigades said its "fighters engaged an armored Israeli force in a well-prepared ambush to the east of Khan Younis, just moments after it crossed the border by a few meters."
"The fighters bravely engaged with the infiltrating force, destroyed two bulldozers and a tank, compelling the force to withdraw, and they returned to their bases safely," the statement further noted.
There were no official Israeli statements on the matter as of 1417 GMT.
