5 Israeli soldiers killed by friendly fire in northern Gaza Strip

The Israeli military said on Thursday that five soldiers were killed and seven wounded in a friendly fire incident in northern Gaza, amid renewed fighting against regrouped Hamas militants in the area.

The Israel Defense Forces said it had opened an investigation into the deadly incident, which occurred when the soldiers were hit by cross-tank fire in Jabalia.

Three of the injured were in serious condition, the IDF added. The troops were members of the 202nd Battalion of the Parachute Brigade.

“An initial investigation into the deaths of five IDF soldiers found that IDF tanks standing dozens of meters away identified a weapon and fired grenades at an IDF force nearby,” the IDF said in a statement.

“This force had entered the northern part of the Gaza Strip and occupied buildings along a logistics route. The tanks fired two grenades for unclear reasons, injuring seven other soldiers, three of them seriously.”

The statement added that the IDF was “investigating why the grenades were fired and whether the soldiers were mistaken for armed militants.”

Seven months after their war to destroy Hamas, Israeli forces are again engaged in heavy fighting in areas of the northern Gaza Strip that the IDF had previously said had been cleared, raising fresh doubts about the government’s war strategy.

Still, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insists on an invasion of Rafah, where his troops have stepped up operations since calling on residents of the city’s east to evacuate last week.

According to the United Nations, at least 600,000 people have been forced to flee parts of Gaza’s southernmost city, where more than a million Palestinians have sought refuge.

The slow increase in aid flowing to the Strip in recent months could also be wiped out by Israel’s attack on Rafah, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Wednesday. with one critical auxiliary crossing blocked and another restricted.

U.S. Central Command said early Thursday that it had successfully anchored a temporary humanitarian pier on a beach in Gaza to increase the flow of aid.

“Trucks carrying humanitarian aid are expected to arrive ashore in the coming days,” said a post on X.