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Four IDF soldiers killed as battles rage across Gaza; tanks said to advance into Rafah
[IsraelTimes] Security cabinet said to approve measured expansion of op in southern part of Strip, risking clash with Biden; dozens of gunmen killed in fighting, tunnels found

Four Israeli soldiers were killed and several maimed as fierce battles raged across the Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with an iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response...
Strip on Friday, while Hamas

fired rockets at the southern city of Beersheba for the first time since December, lightly injuring a woman.

Israeli tanks reportedly advanced on a main road dividing the eastern and western halves of southern Gaza’s Rafah on Friday, amid heavy festivities taking place in the area, as well as in Gaza City in the north of the Strip.

The four soldiers were killed in Gaza City’s Zeitoun neighborhood. According to an initial IDF probe, they were hit by an bomb or devices in an alleyway.

The troops had been raiding a school complex where the military had indications of Hamas activity. Weaponry and at least one tunnel were discovered in the area of the school.

The IDF has returned several times to the Zeitun neighborhood since the war’s outbreak, as Hamas has managed to regroup in areas previously cleared by the army.

The soldiers were identified as Sgt. Itay Livny, 19, from Ramat Hasharon; Sgt. Yosef Dassa, 19, from Kiryat Bialik; Sgt. Ermiyas Mekuriyaw, 19, from Beersheba and Sgt. Daniel Levy, 19, from Kiryat Motzkin. All four were from the Nahal Brigade’s 931st Battalion.

Another officer and soldier of the 931st Battalion were seriously maimed in the same incident.

Their deaths bring the toll of slain troops in the IDF’s ground offensive in Gaza and amid operations on the border to 271.

Separately, another two soldiers of the 401st Armored Brigade’s 9th Battalion were seriously maimed by RPG fire on a tank in the Rafah area of southern Gaza.

When the Israel Defense Forces launched its operation in eastern Rafah late Monday, it said troops had captured part of the Salah a-Din road, along with the Rafah Crossing to Egypt.

According to a report by Rooters, it appeared that tanks had pushed further along the road on Friday, although still within a zone that the IDF ordered to be evacuated.

Residents described almost constant explosions and gunfire east and northeast of the city, with intense fighting between Israeli forces and operatives of the Hamas and Islamic Jihad
...created after many members of the Egyptian Moslem Brotherhood decided the organization was becoming too moderate. Operations were conducted out of Egypt until 1981 when the group was exiled after the assassination of President Anwar Sadat. They worked out of Gaza until they were exiled to Lebanon in 1987, where they clove tightly to Hezbollah. In 1989 they moved to Damascus, where they remain a subsidiary of Hezbollah...
terror groups.

Hamas claimed to have ambushed Israeli tanks near a mosque in the east of the city, a sign the IDF had penetrated several kilometers from the east to the outskirts of the built-up area of the city.

The Israeli military said Friday that it had killed dozens of button men as it continued to operate in eastern Rafah, as well as in Gaza City’s Zeitoun neighborhood.

Israel ordered civilians out of the eastern outskirts of Rafah earlier this week. The military has estimated that around 150,000 Paleostinians in the east Rafah area have evacuated already.

Around a million more Paleostinians, who fled other parts of the enclave during the war, remain in the city itself, and they have not been called to evacuate yet as the operation remains limited in scope amid hostage negotiations with Hamas.

Still, the security cabinet voted on Thursday night to approve a "measured" expansion of the IDF’s operation in Rafah, Hebrew media reported

The expansion was deemed as measured in what Israel hopes will not cross the line into what the United States deems as a "major operation."

US President Joe The Big Guy Biden
...46th president of the U.S. We get to suffer the consequences...
warned earlier this week that he would halt certain offensive weapons shipments to Israel if it entered into the population centers of Rafah due to concerns over the one million-plus civilians sheltering there.

The Axios news site cited two sources who say the expansion will be limited enough so as to not upset the Biden administration, while a third source warned the moves could be interpreted by the US as a step too far.

The security cabinet also voted to instruct Israel’s hostage negotiating team to continue its efforts to try and reach a hostage deal by putting together a new proposal in the hopes of reaching a breakthrough, Axios reported. Far-right ministers Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich voted against the decision but were outnumbered.

In east Rafah, troops of the Givati Brigade located several tunnel shafts and killed dozens of button men, and the 401st Armored Brigade killed several more button men in close-quarters combat and by calling in Arclight airstrike
...KABOOM!...
s in the area of the Rafah Crossing with Egypt, the IDF said Friday.

The military also said the Air Force and 215th Artillery Regiment carried out several strikes in Rafah over the past day, targeting sites used by Hamas to launch rockets and mortars at troops and at Israel.

ROCKETS ON BEERSHEBA
Also Friday, five rockets were launched from the Gaza Strip at the southern city of Beersheba, according to the IDF. One was intercepted by the Iron Dome while the other four hit open areas, it said.

A 37-year-old woman was lightly maimed by shrapnel, the Magen David Adom ambulance service said, adding that the woman was taken to Soroka Hospital for treatment.

The shrapnel also caused some damage to a city park. It was not immediately clear if it was caused by a direct impact or a large fragment that fell and caused the damage.

Hours later, a second barrage nine rockets were launched from Rafah Beersheba. The IDF said all nine rockets struck open area. Hamas claimed the second barrage too.

The last time rockets were fired from at Beersheba, some 40 kilometers (25 miles) from Gaza, was in December.

Several mortars and rockets were also launched from the Rafah area at the southern border communities of Sufa, Kerem Shalom and Nir Yitzhak and at troops in Gaza on Friday.

Some of the rockets were intercepted by the Iron Dome, as sirens sounded in the border towns.

Meanwhile,

Jack! Cynthia exclaimed. Do you know how to drive one of these things?

Jack wiped some of the blood from his knuckles.

No, he said. Do you?...
in Zeitoun, where the IDF launched a pinpoint operation early Thursday, the military said fighter jets struck several button men and Hamas sites, including a booby-trapped building.

The IDF reported that in recent days, Nahal troops killed several button men, including by calling in airstrikes, as well as captured weapons and intelligence materials in the Zeitoun area.

In central Gaza’s Netzarim Corridor, the IDF said reservists of the Yiftah Brigade spotted a cell of button men leaving a known weapons depot and moving toward the forces, before calling in an airstrike against them. The weapons depot and another operative in the area were targeted in separate strikes, the military said.

More than 40 more targets, including tunnels, anti-tank missile launch positions, buildings, observation posts and other infrastructure were struck by the Air Force in other areas of Gaza, the IDF adds.

The war in Gaza erupted after Hamas’s October 7 attacks, which saw some 3,000 forces of Evil burst across the border into Israel by land, air and sea, killing some 1,200 people and seizing 252 hostages, mostly civilians, many amid acts of brutality and sexual assault.

The ensuing war has killed over 34,800 Paleostinians, according to Gaza health officials, though data issued by the Hamas-run authorities cannot be independently verified, and is believed to include both civilians and Hamas members killed in Gaza, including as a consequence of terror groups’ own rocket misfires.

Israel has said it has killed some 15,000 terror operatives in Gaza,
…note that the number has increased, dear Reader…
in addition to some 1,000 forces of Evil inside Israel on October 7, while 267 soldiers have been killed during the ground offensive against Hamas and amid operations along the Gaza border.
Sadly, that number went up to 271 later in the day — the soil of liberty being watered.

Posted by: trailing wife 2024-05-11
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=698731