‘Friendly fire’ kills 5 Israeli soldiers in Gaza, 7 wounded

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 (May 16).

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, reports the Jerusalem Post.

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

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 is a Haredi-integrated unit.

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

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

Meanwhile, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant speaking to IDF forces in Rafah on Thursday, said that their operation there was about making sure "the faucet to Hamas is closed" from being able to rearm.

He said, "many tunnels have already been destroyed and many more will be destroyed soon," which would finally end the terror group's major cross-border capability to resupply itself with weapons.

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.