NOURNEWS- The Israeli military has confirmed the killing of one more army officer during an encounter with Palestinian resistance fighters on the ground in the Gaza Strip on Saturday night.
Al Jazeera has cited the Zionist army as saying that 31-year-old Lieutenant Colonel Roy Yoshai Youssef Mordechai was killed in northern Gaza.
This brings to 176 the number of soldiers the regime has confirmed dead since launching the ground invasion of Gaza in November. The latest fatality also pushes the overall deaths among the occupation forces to 511 since the Al-Aqsa Flood operation by the Palestinian resistance movement, Hamas.
The Zionist army has been announcing the casualties among its soldiers on a daily basis.
However, independent media outlets and Palestinians say the fatalities among the regime’s troops are much higher and that Tel Aviv is hiding the real number to avoid internal and external reactions against the far-right ruling coalition of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Israeli media have also disputed the number of wounded the Israeli army declares, as it differs from the statistics provided by hospitals. Some media are instructed to cite different reasons, including diseases, for the death of wounded soldiers.
Netanyahu’s quagmire
Gaza has become a nightmare for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu amid global denunciation as well as repeated calls for him at home to resign.
Netanyahu, however, once again defied the calls of his opponents on Saturday night, reiterating his pledge that the regime will “continue the war until all its goals are achieved”
"The cabinet I am heading has ordered the army to fight to destroy Hamas, free the hostages, and ensure that Gaza is no longer a threat," Netanyahu was quoted by the Zionist regime's "i24" website.
The Israeli premier also said: “We must put everything aside until achieving a complete victory”.
A defiant Netanyahu made the remarks as he is facing ire at home and abroad over the bloodshed in Gaza and his inability to free captives held by Hamas.
The regime has kept all the crossings of the Gaza Strip closed and keeps pounding the territory with airstrikes and artillery, leaving trail of death and destruction on an hourly basis.
Palestinian fighters are putting stiff resistance to invading troops. But the United Nations and its agencies have declared Gaza “uninhabitable” due to lack of critical infrastructure, as hospitals, schools and refugee camps remain the main targets of Israeli onslaught on the besieged coastal sliver.
NOURNEWS