By Zein Khalil
JERUASLEM (AA) - The Israeli army acknowledged Tuesday that two soldiers killed over the weekend in central Gaza died as a result of a tank shell hitting a building they were stationed in due to a case of mistaken identity.
The army said late Monday that two soldiers were killed and another seriously injured in clashes in the central Gaza Strip.
At the time, the local Yedioth Ahronoth daily reported that an explosion had occurred in the building the three soldiers were in near the Netzarim Corridor.
It noted that the Israeli army is investigating whether the incident resulted from rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) fire or an explosion of Israeli army weapons.
The Israeli army’s “preliminary investigation into the deaths of two reservists in Gaza on Sunday found that they were killed by an IDF (army) tank shell that was fired at the building in which they were staying, due to a mistaken identification,'' Israel’s Haaretz daily reported.
''The IDF said that the investigation showed that during an encounter with terrorists that led to the exchange of gunfire, a tank crew mistakenly identified the two soldiers as enemies and fired at them, despite the fact that they were outside the defined boundaries given to the tank crew,'' it added.
Israel has waged an unrelenting offensive on Gaza since a cross-border attack by the Palestinian group Hamas last Oct. 7 which killed some 1,200 people.
More than 34,500 Palestinians have since been killed, mostly women and children, and thousands of others injured amid mass destruction and severe shortages of necessities.
More than six months into the Israeli war, vast swathes of Gaza lay in ruins, pushing 85% of the enclave’s population into internal displacement amid a crippling blockade of food, clean water and medicine, according to the UN.
Israel stands accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice. An interim ruling in January ordered Tel Aviv to stop genocidal acts and take measures to guarantee that humanitarian assistance is provided to civilians in Gaza.
*Writing by Mohammad Sio in Istanbul