By Abdelraouf Arnaout
JERUSALEM (AA) – At least 15 Israeli soldiers were injured in the past 24 hours during ground battles in the Gaza Strip, the army said on Friday.
The number of wounded officers and soldiers since the beginning of the war on Oct. 7 has risen to 2,324, according to the Israeli army.
These numbers do not include soldiers who are routinely evacuated and those who arrive at the emergency room but are not transferred to the hospital, the army said in a statement.
The number of soldiers and officers injured in ground battles in the Gaza Strip on Friday rose to 1,020, up from 1,006 on Thursday.
Among those injured in the battles in the Gaza Strip, 226 were in serious condition, 372 were in moderate condition, and 422 sustained minor injuries.
Moreover, the number of officers and soldiers killed since the beginning of the war on Oct. 7 has risen to 509, including 175 killed in the ground battles that began on Oct. 27.
Israel has launched relentless air and ground attacks on the Gaza Strip since a cross-border attack by the Palestinian resistance group Hamas on Oct. 7.
At least 22,600 Palestinians have since been killed and 57,910 others injured, according to Gaza’s health authorities, while nearly 1,200 Israelis are believed to have been killed in the Hamas attack.
The onslaught has left Gaza in ruins, with 60% of the enclave's infrastructure damaged or destroyed and nearly 2 million residents displaced amid acute shortages of food, clean water and medicine.
*Writing by Ikram Kouachi