IDF admits it misinterpreted gunfire from Hamas post, struck back in error

The IDF acknowledges that the Hamas shooting that led to a deadly IDF retaliatory strike earlier today did not target IDF troops.

Maj. Gen. Herzi Halevi, the head of the army’s Southern Command, concluded the IDF strike was made in error, as the snipers, part of Hamas’s naval commando unit, were not shooting — as the army believed in real-time — at a border fence patrol of the Rotem battalion of the Givati infantry brigade. The shooting was part of a drill being observed by senior Hamas leaders in the northern Gaza Strip.

The army has sent messages to Hamas via Egypt acknowledging the error but insisting that retaliatory fire on IDF troops would not be tolerated.