IDF tanks kill 5, wound 7 in Gaza friendly fire accident, IDF releases names

Two IDF tanks killed five IDF soldiers and wounded seven more in a friendly fire incident on Wednesday when they fired on a forward IDF battalion headquarters in Jabalya in northern Gaza. The IDF cleared for publication on Thursday.

The tanks were said to be under extreme pressure from dozens of rocket-propelled grenade attacks in the area.

All openings to the tanks, including the canopy on the top, were ordered to be kept closed to avoid any hole or vulnerability to the RPG attacks.

This, in turn, limited the tank's visibility.

IDF tank incident

Tank Unit 82's soldiers said that they saw a potential threat, the barrel of a weapon, emerge from the three floor battalion headquarters, which was only 10-20 meters away from them. The soldiers hit by the tank were from Unit 202, a Haredi-integrated unit.

It was unclear why they did not recognize the battalion headquarters. However, the IDF said that the tanks had taken over the junction in Jabalya around 9:00 am and that the Battalion headquarters deputy commander had only arrived many hours later.

The incident itself took place in the early evening on Wednesday.

Names of the five soldiers killed

The IDF released on Thursday the names of the five soldiers who were killed in the friendly fire attack in the northern Gaza Strip on Wednesday:

Sergeant Roy Beit Yaakov, 22, from Eli, was a combat officer in Battalion 202, Paratroopers Brigade.

Sergeant Daniel Chemu, 20, from Tiberias, was a soldier in Battalion 202, Paratroopers Brigade.

Sergeant Ilan Cohen, 20, from Karmiel, was a soldier in Battalion 202, Paratroopers Brigade.

Staff Sergeant Gilad Arye Boim, 22, from Karnei Shomron, was a soldier in Battalion 202, Paratroopers Brigade.

Staff Sergeant Betzlel David Shashuah, 21, from Tel Aviv, was a soldier in Battalion 202, Paratroopers Brigade.

Evacuated Palestinians, IDF activity

IDF sources that essentially all of the 100,000-150,000 Palestinian civilians who Israel had wanted to evacuate from the area have in fact evacuated.

Next, he said that, "the operation will continue with additional forces which will invade...this operation will continue and intensify."

"Hamas is an organization with no future, it has no capability to manufacture weapons, no supply, no munitions," saying that the IDF is taking it apart as a military organization.

IDF sources said that its commando units joined the fight in Rafah on Thursday to place additional pressure on Hamas, and possibly also to have more precise targeting to reduce Palestinian civilian casualties even more than usual.

Despite Gallant's claims, IDF sources were still unclear about how many Hamas cross-border tunnels there were into Egypt, and it was also unclear how long it would take for the IDF to locate and destroy them all.

Further, despite IDF progress in Rafah, Hamas has managed to fire more rockets and mortars on Israeli forces and on southern Israel since the invasion of Rafah started than it had for most of the last month.

The IDF is hoping that these are the last gasps of Hamas's rocket and mortar capabilities which had been kept hidden in Rafah, but some of the fire has also come from Jabaliya in northern Gaza.

Late Thursday night, the IDF said that it had located and destroyed a wide variety of Hamas rockets and rocket launchers in Rafah, both using ground troops and using surveillance drones.

The IDF said that these launch platforms had been used extensively by Hamas in recent months since the IDF had refrained from entering Rafah.

Separately, an operational accident occurred on midday Thursday resulting from an explosion of a combat device in a military area near the 'Black Arrow' memorial in the South, the IDF announced.

Reports on those wounded were still under gag order at press time.

 Jerusalem Post Staff contributed to this report.