Israel Says More Soldiers Killed In Gaza Amid Clashes

(Bloomberg) -- Israel said 13 more of its soldiers had died in clashes in Gaza as it steps up efforts to wipe out Hamas, the militant group that rules the Palestinian enclave.

The Israeli military made several announcements on Wednesday, without disclosing when the troops died. They were all men and ranged in age between 19 and 24, according to lists published by the Israel Defense Forces.

The IDF has now announced it's suffered 15 fatalities since ground operations in the Gaza Strip started over the weekend. Infantry troops are battling militants and are being supported by tanks and armored vehicles.

They're “moving slowly, meticulously with a lot of firepower to support them with lots of intelligence,” a spokesperson for the IDF said on Tuesday.

Most of the ground operations are concentrated around Gaza City in the north of the territory. Israel has urged Palestinian civilians to evacuate to the south, and has said 800,000 of them have done so.

More than 2 million people live in the densely-populated strip. Hamas, designated a terrorist group by the US and others, on Wednesday said some injured Palestinians and foreigners would be allowed out of Gaza into Egypt. Israel and Egypt have put the territory under a near-total blockade. The borders are shut, apart from to allow small amounts of aid in from the Rafah crossing between Egypt and Gaza.

The war erupted when Hamas fighters rampaged through southern Israel on Oct. 7, killing 1,400 people, many of them children. Israel's responded with mass airstrikes on Gaza, which Palestinian officials say have killed thousands of civilians.

This is Israel's first major incursion into Gaza since 2014. During that campaign, almost 70 its troops were killed.

(Updates first and second paragraphs to reflect latest number of soldiers killed.)

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