An IDF soldier was seriously wounded Sunday during in exchanges of fire during an ongoing operation in the southern Gaza Strip. The soldier, a member of the IDF's elite General Staff Reconnaissance Unit (Sayeret Matkal) was evacuated by helicopter to Soroka Hospital in Beersheba. Troops backed by aircraft and tanks clashed with Palestinian operatives firing mortars and machine guns near Gaza's defunct international airport Sunday, killing three gunmen and a civilian, health officials said. Fifteen people, including several gunmen, were wounded in the fighting, which erupted at about 1 a.m. Sunday after undercover troops took over several homes near the airport in southern Gaza. Tanks and bulldozers moved in to back the troops, and IAF aircraft struck twice, Hamas said. In one air strike, three gunmen were killed, including two from Hamas and one from the Popular Resistance Committees, said Health Ministry official Dr. Moawiya Hassanain. A civilian was also killed in the clashes, Hassanain said.
The IDF said the operation was aimed at terrorists who regularly fire rockets and mortars at southern Israel. It said one of the air strikes was aimed at operatives approaching soldiers. As part of the army raid, bulldozers were razing farmlands in an effort to deny rocket squads cover, and the army was carrying out arrest sweeps of men under 45, Hamas security and residents said. According to Hamas, at least 25 men were arrested.
Separately, a Hamas operative died of wounds sustained in an IAF air strike last week. Earlier Sunday, IDF troops arrested 16 terror suspects in the West Bank. They were taken to security forces for questioning. In a Nablus building where one of the suspects was hiding the soldiers found makeshift weapons and ammunition.