The Israel Defense Forces said it had opened an investigation into the deadly incident, which it said happened when the soldiers were hit by tank cross-fire in Jabalia.

The Israeli military said Thursday that five soldiers were killed and seven injured in a friendly fire incident in northern Gaza, amid renewed battles in the area against regrouped Hamas militants.

“An initial investigation into the deaths of five IDF soldiers reveals that IDF tanks, located dozens of meters away, identified a weapon and fired shells at an IDF force nearby,” the IDF said in a statement.

“This force had entered the northern part of Gaza and occupied buildings along a logistic route. The tanks fired two shells for unclear reasons, resulting in seven more soldiers being injured, three severely.”

  • SkyezOpen@lemmy.worldEnglish
    81·
    6 months ago

    Article says the current friendly fire rate is 15% of all Israeli casualties, which is high for a modern military. Not a statistician so I don’t know if it’s unusually high, and also the relatively low number of IDF casualties may contribute to the high ratio, but there seems to be a common thread. IDF communication SUCKS.

    • guacupado@lemmy.worldEnglish
      3·
      6 months ago

      Israel has a lot of security and urban experience but little actual war experience. There’s a difference in overall strategy.

      • prole@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        2·
        6 months ago

        but little actual war experience.

        Do you think this is the first time they’ve gone to war against Palestine? You might have some history to catch up on.

      • SkyezOpen@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        6 months ago

        Not an expert but I don’t think shooting your own guys fits into any military strategy.

        My point is their communication, situational awareness, fire control, etc, gotta be pretty fucked up in general.

    • partial_accumen@lemmy.worldEnglish
      13·
      6 months ago

      Do we know the number of IDF soldiers involved in total to arrive at the friendly fire casualties? Are we approaching more Israeli deaths from Friendly Fired than from Israeli citizens that were victims of Hamas in the original incursion on Oct 6th?

      • SkyezOpen@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        6 months ago

        First question I think is misunderstanding the claim. To clarify, according to the article, 15% of all IDF casualties are from friendly fire, not 15% of ALL soldiers have been friendly fired.

        The second one? Nah. IDF’s total casualties are only like 6 or 700.

        • partial_accumen@lemmy.worldEnglish
          3·
          6 months ago

          I found a bit more info, but older.

          “Nearly a fifth of Israeli fatalities since the invasion of Gaza in late October were caused by friendly fire or accidents, accounting for 36 of the 188 soldiers killed at the time of the report. Experts say it’s one of the highest such percentages in recent military history.”

          This report is from the end of Jan 2024.

          source

          • SkyezOpen@lemmy.worldEnglish
            1·
            6 months ago

            I found a more recent one that says 278 killed. Not sure where I saw the 600 number. Also 1,700 wounded in case that’s relevant.