UPDATE 2 – 14 more Israeli soldiers killed in Gaza battles: Army

UPDATES DEATH TOLL, REVISES LEDE, ADDS CHANGES

By Ikram Kouachi

ANKARA (AA) – Another Israeli soldier was killed in the Gaza Strip on Sunday, bringing the military death toll in the past 24 hours to 14, the army said.

A military statement said a soldier from the Combat Engineering Corps’ 603rd Battalion was killed in clashes with the southern Gaza Strip.

The army earlier said that nine soldiers had been killed in battles in the Palestinian enclave, including five in Gaza’s south and four others in the central Gaza strip.

Six more soldiers were seriously injured, according to the statement.

The number of Israeli officers and soldiers killed since the outbreak of the Gaza conflict has climbed to 486 since Oct. 7, according to military figures.

Israel has pounded the Gaza Strip since a cross-border attack by Hamas on Oct. 7, killing at least 20,424 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injuring 54,036 others, according to health authorities in the enclave.

Around 1,200 Israelis are believed to have been killed in the Hamas attack.

The Israeli onslaught has left Gaza in ruins with half of the coastal territory's housing stock damaged or destroyed, and nearly 2 million people displaced within the densely-populated enclave amid shortages of food and clean water.