Two Israeli Soldiers Wounded in Shooting Incident on Gaza Border
by Barney Breen-Portnoy
Two IDF soldiers were wounded in a shooting incident on Friday on the Israel-Gaza Strip border.
The soldiers — a male in moderate condition with a bullet wound and a female in light condition with a shrapnel injury — were transported by helicopter to Soroka Medical Center in Beersheba for treatment.
The Israeli military responded with an airstrike on a Hamas position in Gaza, killing two members of the group’s armed wing.
The shooting occurred as weekly Palestinian demonstrations on the border — which began in March 2018 — continued.
Protesters on Friday violently confronted IDF troops, who responded with riot-dispersal means.
Also on Friday, firefighters in southern Israel extinguished several blazes ignited by incendiary balloons launched from Hamas-ruled Gaza.
The latest events occurred as high-level Hamas and Islamic Jihad delegations visited Cairo for talks with Egyptian intelligence officials about the situation on the border.
In recent months, there have been a number of rounds of escalation on the border, but a full-scale conflict has been avoided due to informal understandings brokered by Egypt.