TEHRAN- The Israeli military has admitted that nine of its troops have been killed during combat with the Palestinian resistance in Gaza. 

It comes on the same day that Hamas leader Ismail Haniyah said the regime was nowhere close to victory in its war on Gaza and indicated the reasons behind Operation al-Aqsa Storm on October 7, 2023. 

The Israeli military on Tuesday initially stated that four soldiers had been killed in Gaza, then later announced the names of five others killed in the enclave. 

The latest Israeli army fatalities come a day after media reports surfaced that another nine soldiers had been killed in Gaza after they were caught up in two operations by the resistance. 

An Israeli military statement on Tuesday also said dozens of soldiers have been injured over the past 48 hours. 

The military also announced on Monday that more than 100 of its soldiers had sustained injuries over the past 24 hours. The regime's news outlets described Monday as one of the toughest days so far in the Israeli war on Gaza. 

According to Israeli media reports, 514 Israeli soldiers have been killed since the start of the regime's war on Gaza on October 7, including 180 soldiers who were killed since the start of ground offensives in the coastal enclave on October 27. 

According to the reports, more than 1,000 soldiers have been injured since the start of the ground offensives in Gaza, with around 250 in serious condition. 

Many experts believe the casualty figures of the Israeli army are more than likely to be an undercount and several Israeli papers have reported that the number of wounded soldiers in Gaza is several times higher than the figures being announced. 

The Israeli newspaper Maariv said, "Three months have passed since the outbreak of the war, and partial data on the soldiers’ injuries are now being revealed," adding that "there are approximately 3,221 soldiers wounded since the beginning of the war". 

The Hebrew paper said about 2,335 soldiers who were admitted to hospitals have not returned to combat duty. 

Other Israeli media outlets have cited medical staff in the occupation army who have revealed that a quarter of the soldiers receiving psychological treatment in private clinics, about 9,000 soldiers, have not returned to combat duties in Gaza. 

Several days ago, the regime's media reported an estimate by the "Israeli Ministry of Security" indicating that about 12,500 soldiers would be permanently disabled as a result of the war on Gaza. 

On the battlefield, the military wing of Hamas, the al-Qassam brigades?, has said its fighters thwarted a raid in the central Gaza Strip's al-Bureij camp, where the regime believed one of its captives had been taken. 

The botched attempt, according to the al-Qassam brigades?, resulted in the death of Israeli soldiers and the seizure of their military equipment.  

In a statement, al-Qassam brigades? also said that members of an Israeli military unit were killed and injured after coming under attack in a house in an area in the southern city of Khan Younis, where they had taken refuge inside. 

Palestinian resistance factions continue to confront the occupation army's attempts to advance in central and southern areas of the enclave, which is currently witnessing the most intense battles. 
The occupation army has effectively withdrawn from the northern Gaza Strip after reducing its civilian infrastructure to rubble but failing to achieve any success. 

In a show of its ongoing strength, the armed wing of Hamas has fired rockets at multiple cities and settlements in the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories, including a barrage of missiles at Tel Aviv and its suburbs. 

Israeli media reported sirens sounding in Tel Aviv and some 30 other cities and towns.

The al-Qassam brigades said in a statement that it had "bombed Tel Aviv with a missile salvo in response to the Zionist massacres against civilians." 

The head of the Hamas political bureau, Ismail Haniyeh, has said that the only way for the "Zionist prisoners to leave Gaza alive" is to release all Palestinian prisoners in the occupation prisons. 

In a televised speech, Haniyeh indicated that "the declared Israeli goals of the war are: eliminating the Hamas movement, recovering the captives, and implementing a displacement plan (for Gazan civilians)". 

He stressed that the "army of the occupation and the Zionist and Western intelligence have been unable to achieve none of these goals after 100 days of war." 

Haniyeh also cited several reasons that led to the al-Aqsa Storm Operation on October 7. "The marginalization of the Palestinian issue on a local and international level, the arrival of [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's] Zionist government, which placed on top of its agenda the displacement of our people, the desecration of the al-Aqsa Mosque and changes to its status quo." 

The final issue Haniyah pointed out was "the processes of normalization and integration of the (Israeli) occupation into the region at the expense of our people and our cause." 

As regional and international actors scramble to find a ceasefire to end the Israeli war on Gaza, many global leaders have accepted that the Palestinian struggle has been long lost in the minds of the international community. 

The ultra-right cabinet members of the Netanyahu government have been condemned for encouraging settlers to go on deadly rampages against Palestinian civilians in occupied West Bank villages. 

Netanyahu’s coalition government, which is the most radical of its kind in Israel’s history, came into power in January last year. 

This is while the Netanyahu government had instructed the military to raid the occupied West Bank on an almost daily basis, making 2023 the deadliest for Palestinian civilians (before October 7) since records by the United Nations began. 

Palestinian prisoners have been deprived of their most basic human rights, whilst female prisoners subjected to physical abuse. 

The same government of Netanyahu had encouraged more settlers to desecrate the holy al-Aqsa Mosque in occupied al-Quds (Jerusalem) on a more regular basis. 

Several countries in the West Asia region have also normalized ties with the occupying regime.