After 2 soldiers shot, IDF checks whether Gaza sniper targeted senior officer
Fourth Palestinian reportedly dies overnight from injuries sustained during Friday border violence
The army was investigating the possibility that a Palestinian sniper targeted a senior Israel Defense Forces officer during riots on the Gaza border Friday.
The army’s Gaza division would conduct an investigation into the shooting, which injured two soldiers who were part of a patrol near the border in the southern Gaza Strip, the Walla news site reported.
One soldier was moderately wounded in the attack and a female soldier was lightly hurt, the IDF said. Both were evacuated by helicopter to the Soroka hospital in Beersheba. Media reports said the male soldier, an officer and a tracker, had a gunshot wound in the thigh, while the female soldier was hit by shrapnel.
In response to the shooting, an IDF aircraft attacked a nearby Hamas post, the army said.
The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry said two people were killed in the strike and two others were wounded. The ministry identified the two killed as Abdullah Ibrahim Mahmoud Abu Salouh, 33 and Alaa Ali Hasan al-Boubli, 29.
Hamas, an Islamist terror group, confirmed the two men killed in the airstrike were members of its military wing and pledged to respond to what it called an “Israeli aggression.”
The Hebrew-language Twitter account of the Hamas-affiliated Shehab news agency issued a threat to Israel Friday night: “We will respond to the crimes of the occupation and the killing of our people.”
The Palestinian Islamic Jihad also said it held Israel responsible for the deaths, but did not claim responsibility for the sniper shooting.
The incidents, which marked a serious escalation, came during weekly border protests in which several thousand Gazans gathered at five sites. Some of the demonstrators rioted, throwing rocks and makeshift explosive devices at soldiers, who responded with tear gas and occasional live fire.
A third Palestinian was killed during the border riots, the Gaza health ministry said, identifying him as Ra’ed Khalil Abu Tayyer, 19, adding that 40 protesters had been injured. The IDF said troops had identified several attempts to breach the fence.
Overnight Friday, a fourth Palestinian died from injuries sustained during the riots, according to Hebrew media reports.
Earlier Friday, Israeli troops arrested a Palestinian man who crossed the northern Gaza border security fence, the army said, adding that the soldiers who searched him discovered a knife, and a balloon from Gaza carrying an incendiary device set off a brushfire near the town of Tekuma five kilometers east of the coastal enclave. Firefighters managed to put out the blaze shortly after it was detected.
