A military reservist was killed in an "operational accident" on the border with the Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with an iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about
oppressionand
disproportionate response...
Strip, the Israel Defense Forces said Thursday, a day after five soldiers were killed due to a case of mistaken identity.
Sgt. Maj. (res.) Ran Yavetz, 39, was killed in a blast caused by Israeli munitions in a military zone near the Black Arrow memorial site, hundreds of meters inside Israel.
Yavetz, from Modiin, had served with the Bislamach Brigade’s 6828th Battalion.
Four other soldiers were lightly injured in the accident, which was under further investigation, the army said.
On Thursday morning, the IDF announced that five Israeli soldiers were killed and another seven maimed, including three seriously, in a friendly fire incident in northern Gaza’s Jabaliya the night before.
The deaths brought the toll of slain troops in the IDF ground offensive against Hamas
..the well-beloved offspring of the Moslem Brotherhood,...in Gaza and in operations on the border to 279. A civilian Defense Ministry contractor has also been killed in Gaza.
At least 50 of the fatalities have been due to friendly fire and other accidents, according to IDF data. The army has assessed that myriad reasons have led to the deadly accidents, including communication issues between forces, and soldiers being exhausted and not paying attention to regulations.
Tanks continued to push into the heart of Jabaliya in northern Gaza on Thursday, facing anti-tank rockets and mortar bombs from Hamas fighters concentrated, Paleostinians reported.
Israel says it has eliminated many button men in Jabaliya but had no new comment on developments there on Thursday.
In Rafah, where residents reported heavy Israeli bombardments, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant announced that more troops would be deployed in Gaza’s southernmost city, the focus of intense international consternation.
"This operation will continue with additional forces that will enter [the area]. Several tunnels in the area have been destroyed by our forces and more tunnels will be destroyed soon," Gallant said in remarks provided by his office.
Senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri
...a senior spokesman for Hamas. Zuhri gained notoriety in 2006 when he dropped his money belt containing somewhere between 640,000 and 900,000 euros, which was confiscated by Paleostinian security and customs officials at a routine border crossing from Egypt to Gaza. The news brought competing Hamas and Fatah forces to the crossing checkpoint for an epic face-making and hollering contest...
responded that the Paleostinian terror group would defend its people "by all means."
Israel says four of Hamas’s six remaining battalions are now in Rafah along with hostages kidnapped during the terror group’s October 7 massacre, but it faces international pressure not to invade the city, where hundreds of thousands of displaced Paleostinian civilians are sheltering amid the ongoing war. Two more Hamas battalions remain in central Gaza, in the Nuseirat and Deir al-Balah camps.
The United Nations
...an organization which on balance has done more bad than good, with the good not done well and the bad done thoroughly...
says that over 600,000 Gazooks have evacuated the city since the IDF began operations there last week by taking over the Paleostinian side of the Rafah Border Crossing.
South Africa on Thursday asked the International Court of Justice to halt the IDF’s military campaign in Rafah — and in all of Gaza — claiming that Israel has genocidal intent against Paleostinians.
Citing comments by Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich who was quoted by Haaretz at the end of April as saying, "There are no half-measures. Rafah, Deir al-Balah, Nusseirat — total annihilation," as evidence of Israeli genocidal intent, Attorney Tembeka Ngcukaitobi also played a video of IDF soldiers before entering the southern Gazook city praying and then singing, "We will dismantle Rafah."
South Africa told the top UN court that the Rafah offensive was "part of the endgame in which Gaza is utterly destroyed." Israel has denied allegations of genocide in Gaza and said it had complied with an earlier court order to step up aid. Israel will respond to South Africa at Friday’s hearing.
The IDF began sending troops into Rafah on May 7, in what it has described as a pinpoint operation, with soldiers currently holding a relatively small area southeast of the city.
The IDF said that troops of the 414th Combat Intelligence Collection Unit located several primed rocket launchers with long-range projectiles Thursday.
The launchers, some of which were used in attacks on Israeli cities in recent months, were located and demolished using drones, the military said.
In a different area of Rafah, the IDF said troops located another rocket launching site with dozens of launchers, before it was also demolished. This site had also been used in recent attacks on Israeli cities, including last week’s barrage on Beersheba, according to the military.
| More from a Times of Israel report yesterday morning: |
The IDF said the division’s 7th and 460th armored brigades battled “dozens of armed squads and eliminated a large number of terrorists” over the past day.
In the same area, a drone strike killed a terror cell responsible for rocket fire on the southern city of Sderot on Tuesday, the military said.
IDF Spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said Tuesday that troops are now operating in areas of Jabaliya that the IDF previously did not reach in the initial ground offensive in northern Gaza. More than 80 gunmen have been killed in the operation that started on Sunday.
On Wednesday morning, several rockets were fired from Jabaliya at Sderot. Some of the rockets were downed by the Iron Dome air defense system, while at least one struck an unoccupied building, authorities said. There were no injuries.
The rate of rocket fire on southern towns has steadily increased in recent days as the IDF was carrying out new operations against Hamas.
| A useful observation. |
The IDF also confirmed Wednesday morning that troops of the Nahal Brigade withdrew from Gaza City’s Zeitoun neighborhood after six days, to prepare for “additional offensive operations.”
The IDF reentered Zeitoun last Thursday for the third time in the ongoing war after identifying Hamas regrouping there.
Reservists of the Carmeli Brigade continued to operate in Zeitoun, the IDF added, contradicting media reports claiming that the six-day operation there had ended.
On Tuesday night, Hagari said troops had killed more than 150 gunmen and destroyed some 80 sites used by terror groups in the ongoing Zeitoun operation.