Gaza anti-tank missile strikes army jeep, injures 4 soldiers

An IDF Merkava tank fires during drills in the Golan Heights in 2008. (photo credit: Neil Cohen/IDF Spokesperson's Unit via Wikimedia Commons)

RELATED TOPICS

• GAZA STRIP
• IDF ISRAEL DEFENSE FORCES
• PALESTINIANS

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An anti-tank missile fired from the Gaza Strip struck an army jeep patrolling the border east of Gaza City and injured four soldiers. Retaliatory strikes by the IDF against terrorists in the Gaza Strip left at least four killed and two dozen wounded.

One soldier was seriously injured with shrapnel wounds to the head, another was in serious condition and two moderately injured when the Givati Brigade vehicle was hit by the missile, the IDF Spokesperson said. The two seriously injured soldiers were airlifted to Soroka Medical Center in Beersheba and the two moderately wounded soldiers were rushed to Barzilai Medical Center in Ashkelon.

Channel 10 reported that an initial investigation conducted by GOC Southern Command Maj. Gen. Tal Russo found that the vehicle was approximately 200 meters from the border fence when it was hit.

The Ali Abu Mustafa Brigades, the armed wing of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) claimed responsibility for the anti-tank missile attack shortly afterwards, saying it fired two Kornet missiles at the Israeli vehicle.

The IDF and Israeli media reports were skeptical about the PFLP’s claim, and instead posited that the likely perpetrator of the attack was Islamic Jihad.

Palestinian eyewitnesses reported clashes between Palestinians and IDF troops, and local media reports claimed that the IDF immediately retaliated with tank fire and helicopter strikes that killed four Palestinians and injured at least 25 others.

Ashraf al-Kadera, a Gaza health ministry spokesman, said all four killed were civilians between the ages of 16 and 18 and that among the wounded were children.

Four more Palestinians were injured in an IDF airstrike east of Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip, Ma’an news agency reported.

A Southern Command officer told Channel 10 after the attack that “we cannot continue to restrain ourselves with these in incidents in the South. In the past few weeks there has been a rise in the number of wounded as a result of terror activities. If we continue to use restraint and not deal out harder hits, the injuries are likely to continue, and their strength is likely to increase.”

A Hamas spokesman, Fawzi Barhoum, said Saturday that his movement would retaliate against the “Zionist escalation.”

“Our resistance to the occupation and the Zionist soldiers killing our people is legitimate as defense of our families,” Barhoum said, asserting that the Israeli attack came as part of the election campaign.

“We will not allow Palestinian blood to be the price for electoral and political achievements in Israel,” Barhoum told local media.

The clashes came two days after Israeli forces found a large tunnel filled with explosives burrowed beneath the Gaza border fence, and briefly sent ground troops into Gaza. After the IDF disarmed charges found on the Gaza side of the border, explosives in the tunnel exploded, damaging a jeep and lightly injuring a soldier.