By Anadolu staff
GAZA CITY, Palestine (AA) - The Israeli army on Tuesday said two more of its soldiers were killed in battles in the Gaza Strip with Palestinian resistance groups.
Israeli public broadcaster KAN identified the slain soldiers as Staff Sgt. Elisha Yehonatan Lober, 24, and Sgt. First Class (res.) Joseph Yosef Gitarts, 25, of the 179th Reserve Armored Brigade.
The death toll in the Israeli army since the start of the ground operation in the besieged enclave on Oct. 27 has risen to 164. The total number of Israeli troops killed since the start of the latest conflict in October, meanwhile, reached 491.
Israel has killed more than 20,700 people, mostly women and children, in air and ground attacks on Gaza since a cross-border attack by Hamas on Oct. 7. The death toll from Hamas’s attack on Israel stands at 1,200.
The Israeli onslaught has left Gaza in ruins, with 60% of the coastal territory's housing damaged or destroyed and nearly 2 million people displaced within the densely populated enclave amid acute shortages of food, clean water and medicines.
*Writing by Ahmed Asmar