Video shows dramatic rescue of wounded soldiers by police during initial fighting
IDF troops seen extracted from tank where they had taken refuge and led to medical attention by Border Police officers who continued to exchange heavy fire with terrorists
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Police on Tuesday published footage showing Border Police officers battling against Hamas terrorists to save a group of wounded IDF soldiers near the Gaza border on Saturday, just hours after the start of the mass Hamas invasion.
The incident occurred near Kibbutz Nir Am, one of the few communities where Hamas terrorists attempted to enter on Saturday but were repelled, which lies less than 500 meters from the border with Gaza.
The officers had received a report of wounded soldiers who were trapped amid heavy gunfire by terrorists near the kibbutz during the initial onslaught.
The lightly edited video shows, from the perspective of a helmet-mounted camera, the police officers exiting their vehicle while taking heavy fire. All the faces are blurred and the identities of those involved were not released.
They are able to move close to what appears to be a disabled tank, where the wounded soldiers had taken refuge. Gingerly approaching the armored door, they yell loudly, “Police, police!” before opening the tank and leading out those wounded inside.
With the wounded soldiers limping and leaning heavily on the police officers, the rescuers are able to call for an armored vehicle to come to their location to aid in their extraction, all the while exchanging heavy fire.
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The last moments of the video show a different scene, with the police helping kibbutz residents to find shelter amidst the ongoing fighting.
In a statement, the police said that the officers “encountered heavy firefights with armed terrorists, while they were conducting searches in order to locate the wounded soldiers. Amid the fighting, the officers found a group of wounded soldiers hiding inside a tank. Under heavy fire and while eliminating many terrorists in the area, the fighters… rescued the wounded soldiers and took them to receive medical treatment.”
On Tuesday, the IDF said it had finally regained control over the Gaza Strip border, some 72 hours after Hamas blew through sections of the barrier and launched an invasion that saw more than 1,000 Israelis slaughtered or kidnapped.
As Israel continued to grapple with the emerging enormity of Saturday’s massacres and the military was formally notifying hostages’ families that their loved ones were being held in Gaza, Air Force planes bombarded wide swaths of the Strip.
Meanwhile, some 300,000 reservists girded for a possible ground invasion, sweeps to locate terrorists feared still hiding inside Israel continued and tensions on the northern border threatened to snowball into a second front.
The death toll in Israel from the surprise attack and subsequent battles rose above 900, according to reports. More than 500 people remained hospitalized, many with life-threatening injuries; over 2,800 have been injured since Saturday.
Agencies contributed to this report.
The Times of Israel Community.