From the Liveblog of
Sunday, May 19, 2024
IDF says 2 soldiers killed, 4 seriously wounded during fighting in southern Gaza
Emanuel (Mannie) Fabian is The Times of Israel's military correspondent
The IDF announces the deaths of two soldiers killed during fighting in the southern Gaza Strip on Saturday.
The slain troops are named as Staff Sgt. Nachman Meir Haim Vaknin, 20, from Eilat and Staff Sgt. Noam Bittan, 20, from Yad Rambam.
The pair served in the Givati Brigade’s reconnaissance unit.
Vaknin and Bittan were killed and another two soldiers and an officer of the Givati reconnaissance unit were seriously wounded as a result of a blast in a booby-trapped tunnel shaft in the Rafah area.
Their deaths bring the toll of slain troops in the IDF’s ground offensive against Hamas in Gaza and in operations on the border to 282.
In a separate incident, a reservist of the 5832nd Combat Engineering Battalion was seriously wounded in Rafah after his D9 armored bulldozer was hit by an RPG.
