Soldier killed in Gaza outpost bombing

[Gimel]

An Israel Defense Forces soldier was killed and five others were wounded - four of them lightly, one moderately - when a huge bomb went off at an army outpost in the Gaza Strip last night.

One soldier was trapped under the rubble of the outpost, located near the Gush Katif Junction, and later died of his wounds. All five of the wounded soldiers were evacuated to Soroka Medical Center in Be'er Sheva.

The rescue operation was complicated by Palestinian gunmen who fired mortar shells at the forces attempting to evacuate the injured.

Both Hamas and the Fatah-affiliated Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades claimed responsibility for the attack, though it currently appears that Hamas was the real perpetrator. The organization said that it dug a tunnel under the outpost and planted a large quantity of explosives there. The attack, it added, was to avenge Israel's assassination of two of its leaders, Ahmed Yassin and Abdel Aziz Rantisi, as well as the IDF operation in Nablus that killed seven wanted Palestinian men on Saturday.

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