Illustrative image. (The Israeli Defense Forces)
Five Israeli soldiers were killed and 14 were wounded after coming under attack in the area of Beit Hanoun in the northern Gaza Strip late on July 7, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) announced.
Four of the slain soldiers served in the Kfir Brigade’s Netzah Yehuda Battalion, while the fifth served in the Gaza Division’s Northern Brigade.
According to an initial IDF probe, the troops were hit by a bomb planted on the side of a road during a late night ground operation in Beit Hanoun. The troops were operating on foot and were not inside a vehicle. During attempts to extract the casualties, the forces came under fire.
Among the 14 other troops who were wounded in the daring attack in Beit Hanoun, two were reported to be in serious condition.
The al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of the Gaza-ruling Hamas Movement, later claimed responsibility for the attack.
“The complex Beit Hanoun operation is an additional blow dealt by our valiant mujahideen to the prestige of the weak occupation army and its most criminal units, in an area the occupation had deemed safe after leaving no stone unturned,” the group spokesman Abu Obaida said in a post on Telegram.
“The battle of attrition our fighters are waging with the enemy from the north to the south of the Gaza Strip will inflict additional losses on it every day. While it recently miraculously succeeded in freeing its soldiers from hell, it may fail later, leaving us with additional prisoners,” he added.
The latest deaths brought the number of Israeli troops killed since the start of the large-scale offensive against the Hamas Movement in Gaza, codenamed “Operation Gideon’s Chariots,” to 30.
In total, Israel’s toll in ground operations in the Strip and along its border since the start of ground operations there has reached 449.
Israel launched Operation Gideon’s Chariots in May after calling up tens of thousands of reservists. The IDF said at the time that it wants to occupy 75 percent of Gaza in two months. As of July 4, at least 65 percent of the Strip had been captured, according to the military.
Once the operation is completed, more than two million Palestinians will be crammed in three isolated small zones in the southern, central and northern parts of the Strip.
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