Israeli army members near the Gaza border during the temporary truce (Getty Images)
The Israeli occupation army acknowledged that a thousand of its soldiers and officers have been wounded since the beginning of the war on the Gaza Strip, and the chief of staff admitted the failure to confront the attack of the Palestinian resistance on the seventh of last October.
The Israeli newspaper Haaretz quoted the army as saying that 202 Israeli soldiers and officers were seriously wounded, 320 soldiers were moderately wounded, and 470 soldiers and officers were lightly wounded.
The Israel Broadcasting Corporation also quoted IDF sources as saying that 5 soldiers were killed in the Gaza Strip by friendly fire, and that 3 others were killed by gunfire and an unsafe explosion.
A report prepared by the Israeli army indicated that dozens of soldiers were injured as a result of falling from military vehicles, or using military vehicles in the wrong way.
The Al Jazeera correspondent said Haaretz pressed the Israeli military to acknowledge the casualty toll after news leaked from hospitals.
The correspondent added that the newspaper said that unlike previous wars, Israeli military censorship has imposed strict restrictions to prevent information leakage about wounded soldiers.
The Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper said on Monday that the Israeli army was operating in only 20% of the Gaza Strip during its ground operation.
For its part, the Israeli army says – through its website – that 392 soldiers have been killed since the beginning of the war on the seventh of last October, without detailing the number of those killed in ground battles.
Admission of failure
On October 1200, the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades and other Palestinian factions launched an attack on the settlements surrounding Gaza, killing 239,<> Israelis and capturing about <> others, according to the official Israel Broadcasting Corporation.
Israel launched a war on the Strip that left massive destruction of infrastructure and tens of thousands of civilian casualties, mostly children and women, as well as an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe, according to official Palestinian and UN sources.
IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevy said that the army and intelligence division failed on Oct. 7, but we shouldn't get caught up in that now.
He added that the army is taking advantage of the days of the truce to prepare and develop plans to complete the fight to dismantle the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), as he put it, noting that the army does not only defend the border with northern Lebanon, but also initiates operations, according to his assessment.
Source: Israeli Press