Illustrative image. (The Israeli Defense Forces)
The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) announced on May 29 that three soldiers were killed in the area of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip a day earlier.
The soldiers were all serving in the ranks of the Nahal Brigade’s 50th Battalion. Their deaths brought the toll of slain Israeli troops in the IDF’s ground operations against the Hamas Movement and other armed factions in Gaza and along its border to 291.
According to an initial IDF probe, the three were killed by a blast in a booby-trapped building. An officer and two soldiers of the same unit were seriously wounded and another officer was moderately hurt in the same attack.
The deadly attack in Rafah was first announced by the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas. The group’s description of the attack is identical to that of the IDF.
In another incident on May 28, an officer and a soldier of the Combat Engineering Corps’ 614th Battalion were seriously wounded during clashes in northern Gaza, the IDF said.
It added that a soldier of the elite Yahalom combat engineering unit was also seriously wounded and three other soldiers were lightly and moderately hurt as a result of a blast in a booby-trapped tunnel shaft in southern Gaza.
Another soldier of the Multi-Domain Unit was seriously wounded in the northern part of the Strip early on May 29, according to the IDF.
It’s worth noting that more than 1,600 Israeli troops have been wounded since the beginning of the IDF ground operations in Gaza.
The Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades and the al-Quds Brigades, the military wing of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, released on May 27 and 28 several videos showing clashes with Israeli troops in northern Gaza as well as mortar and rocket attacks on IDF gatherings in the central and southern parts of the Strip.
The IDF intensified operations in Gaza earlier this month, launching an offensive in Rafah and two others in the Jabalia refugee camp and the al-Zaytun neighborhood in neighboring Gaza City in northern Gaza. The operations led to more civilian casualties.
The Palestinian death toll surged to 36,096 by May 28 with more than 81,136 people wounded in Gaza, according to the health ministry in the Strip.
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