In one of the harshest blows it has suffered since the start of the ground attack on the Gaza Strip, the Israeli army announced, on Wednesday morning, the killing of 8 of its soldiers, most of them officers, in an ambush.
In detail, the official Israeli Broadcasting Authority, Kan, reported that the soldiers and officers who were killed were from the 13th Battalion of the Golani Brigade.
At the top of the list of those killed was the battalion commander, Lieutenant Colonel Tomer Greenberg.
The authority said that soldiers and officers stormed a building to search it during a field survey in the Shujaiya neighborhood, east of Gaza City, and as soon as they were inside, Palestinian fighters opened fire on them and also detonated an explosive device.
Fierce fighting broke out between the two sides, and in the meantime the Israeli force was divided into two parts.
A third force rushed to the scene to assist and rescue, and then the Palestinians detonated another bomb, resulting in deaths and injuries among Israeli army soldiers.
Later, Palestinian fighters detonated a third bomb with Israeli force.
As a result, the soldiers who were still alive called for air support, and helicopters transported the injured and the bodies of the dead from the place.
The Israeli army is investigating whether the attack was related to the presence of a tunnel in the building, which the Palestinians used in the ambush.
On the other hand, the Al-Qassam Brigades, the military arm of the Hamas movement, and other military wings of the factions did not announce the launch of this attack, although they regularly announce the launch of similar attacks, namely attacking Israeli soldiers when they are holed up in buildings in the Gaza Strip since the start of the ground war.
What is strange about the Israeli announcement is that it came in the north of the Gaza Strip and not in the south, as the army said days before that its operations there were about to end, according to Sky News Arabia.
The Israeli army regularly killed a limited number of soldiers in batches ranging between 2 and 3 during most days of the war, but in recent days it raised the number to 4 or 5 soldiers.
The only time the army announced the killing of 9 soldiers at once was on November 1, when it said that all of the soldiers were killed by an anti-tank missile fired at the “Tiger” armored vehicle.
With the killing of the eight soldiers, the death toll of the Israeli army rises to 442 soldiers since the beginning of the war on October 7, including 113 soldiers since the start of the ground attack in late October.
Read also:
After the death of 10 soldiers in the battle of Shuja’iya, the Israeli army reveals the number of its deaths since the start of the attack on Gaza.
How were Israeli army officers and soldiers killed in the Shujaiya ambush in Gaza?
Israel suffers its largest losses in Gaza since October and faces diplomatic isolation
The Israeli army opens fire on patient rooms in a hospital in Gaza
Haniyeh: Any arrangements in Gaza Without Hamas is an illusion and a mirage
Netanyahu and Chief of Staff of the Israeli Army: What happened in Shujaiya was very difficult
#Israeli #army #officers #soldiers #killed #Shujaiya #ambush #Gaza
2023-12-13 20:35:36
