"Two officers and three armored personnel carriers from the 82nd Battalion of the Sa'ar Magolan Brigade were seriously wounded earlier today during a battle in the northern Gaza Strip," the army said in a statement. The wounded were evacuated for treatment and their families have been notified, it added, without providing any details about the circumstances of the incident.
However, the Hebrew-language Times of Israel website reported that the five soldiers "were wounded in a short-range clash between Israeli army forces and gunmen who stormed a tank position, attached two explosive devices to a tank, and opened fire on the soldiers."
He added, "According to an Israeli military investigation, five gunmen participated in the incident. Two of them were killed, one by a tank shell and the other in a head-on firefight. The remaining three withdrew."
Earlier on Monday, the Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, announced that it had shelled an Israeli military site in the al-Tuffah neighborhood east of Gaza City on Sunday with several mortar shells.
Al-Qassam Brigades said in a statement that its fighters "managed, yesterday, Sunday, to destroy an enemy command and control site east of the al-Tuffah neighborhood in eastern Gaza City with a number of mortar shells."
Since the start of the war of extermination in Gaza on October 7, 2023, 913 Israeli soldiers have been killed and 6,284 wounded, according to data from the occupation army on its website.
Amid tight military censorship of the media in Israel, the army faces accusations of concealing a higher death toll to maintain morale.
Despite the ongoing genocide, Palestinian factions in Gaza announce almost daily the killing and wounding of soldiers and the destruction of army vehicles, some of which are documented in photos and videos.
