Illustrative image (The Israeli Defense Forces)
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) announced on September 18 that four troops were killed and several others were injured during fighting in the southern Gaza Strip a day earlier.
The slain troops were identified as a captain and two staff sergeants from the Givati Brigade’s Shaked Battalion as well as a female staff sergeant who was serving as a paramedic with the 401st Armored Brigade’s 52nd Battalion.
According to an initial IDF probe, the four troops were killed after entering a booby-trapped building in the Tel Sultan neighborhood of the Rafah areas. Further details were under investigation by the military.
In the same incident, an officer and two soldiers in the Shaked Battalion were seriously wounded, and two soldiers of the battalion were moderately wounded, the IDF said.
IDF officials said, according to the Times of Israel, that fighters from the Hamas Movement booby-trapped a vast number of homes in Rafah and waited in tunnels for troops to arrive. During the operation in Rafah, the IDF said, it encountered entire neighborhoods that were booby-trapped by Hamas, and not just single buildings as it had seen in other parts of the Strip.
In a separate incident from September 17, an officer in the Givati Brigade’s Reconnaissance Unit was seriously wounded by rocket fire in Rafah, according to the IDF.
The attacks in Rafah came just a week after the IDF declared that the Rafah Brigade of the al-Qassam Brigade, the military wing of Hamas, had been defeated.
The last four deaths brought Israel’s toll in the ground operations against Hamas and other Palestinian armed factions in Gaza and along its border to 348. More than 2,280 others have been reportedly wounded. In addition, over 500 vehicles were hit in the Strip, according to Hebrew media.
Meanwhile on the Palestinian side, the death toll from the Israeli war has exceeded 41,000, with women and children making up most of the casualties.
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