Reservist seriously wounded, 2 lightly hurt in southern Strip, as Israel said to carry out major strikes across the enclave; IDF warns residents of Gaza City’s Zeitoun to evacuate
Khan Younis, April 9, 2025. (Emanuel Fabian/Times of Israel)
Amid intense fighting in Gaza, Defense Minister Israel Katz said Friday that the Israel Defense Forces was making strides but paying a heavy price in the enclave, where a reservist was killed on Thursday and another was seriously wounded by RPG fire on Friday afternoon.
“The achievements are great, but still, the dangers are great and the prices are heavy,” wrote Katz on X.
His comments came as heavy strikes were reported in both the northern and southern Gaza Strip.
“Thousands of IDF soldiers in the standing army and reserves are now heroically fighting in Gaza for the release of hostages and to destroy Hamas terrorists,” said Katz, adding that the military was operating “intensely” to ensure ground troops were protected.
“All Israeli citizens must embrace and strengthen IDF commanders and soldiers and pray for their safety and success,” he said.
An hour after Katz’s statement, the IDF issued an evacuation warning to Palestinians in the Zeitoun neighborhood of Gaza City ahead of Israeli strikes on the area in the Strip’s north.
In a post on X, the IDF’s Arabic-language spokesman Col. Avichay Adraee published a map of the area that is to be evacuated, saying the warning came in light of attacks by terror groups against Israeli forces in the area. Adraee urged the Palestinians to head for western Gaza City.
Mohammed al-Mughayyir, an official with Gaza’s Hamas-run civil defense rescue agency, told AFP that the death toll from Israeli strikes on Friday had risen to at least 40.
WAFA, the Palestinian Authority’s official news agency, said that an elderly Palestinian couple was killed Friday by Israeli artillery fire near Zeitoun, another Palestinian was killed in an airstrike on Gaza City’s Shejaiya neighborhood and three were killed in an airstrike on a school housing displaced people in central Gaza City.
According to WAFA, two more Palestinians were killed in drone strikes on Jabalia and Beit Hanoun, also in northern Gaza.
Hamas’s civil defense agency also reported at least five people — a couple and their three children — had been killed Friday when their tent was struck in the Al-Mawasi area of the southern city of Khan Younis.
Agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal said the deceased woman had been pregnant.
The IDF did not immediately comment on those reported strikes. The military says it takes precautionary steps to minimize harm to civilians, accuses Hamas of embedding itself in civilian infrastructure, including schools, to carry out attacks on Israel and Israeli troops.
The military said its fighter jets had on Friday afternoon carried out several strikes in the Tel Sultan neighborhood of Rafah, south of Khan Younis, in an attempt to kill gunmen who fired an RPG at an army Humvee, and possibly also opened fire with light arms.
The attack seriously wounded a soldier from the IDF’s 205th Reserve Armored Brigade’s 5250th Battalion, and lightly injured two more troops, the military said.
Meanwhile, the Hamas civil defense agency on Friday said the toll from an Israeli airstrike on a house in northern Gaza’s Jabalia the previous day had risen to 23.
“Civil defense teams recovered 11 bodies last night and this morning following the Israeli bombing that targeted a residential house … in Jabalia,” Mohammed al-Mughayyir, an official with the agency, told AFP.
“This is in addition to the 12 victims recovered at the time of the attack yesterday,” he added.
Khan Younis, April 9, 2025. (Emanuel Fabian/Times of Israel)
Amid intense fighting in Gaza, Defense Minister Israel Katz said Friday that the Israel Defense Forces was making strides but paying a heavy price in the enclave, where a reservist was killed on Thursday and another was seriously wounded by RPG fire on Friday afternoon.
“The achievements are great, but still, the dangers are great and the prices are heavy,” wrote Katz on X.
His comments came as heavy strikes were reported in both the northern and southern Gaza Strip.
https://imasdk.googleapis.com/js/core/bridge3.692.0_en.html#fid=goog_166176423302:09 / 26:38
“Thousands of IDF soldiers in the standing army and reserves are now heroically fighting in Gaza for the release of hostages and to destroy Hamas terrorists,” said Katz, adding that the military was operating “intensely” to ensure ground troops were protected.
“All Israeli citizens must embrace and strengthen IDF commanders and soldiers and pray for their safety and success,” he said.
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An hour after Katz’s statement, the IDF issued an evacuation warning to Palestinians in the Zeitoun neighborhood of Gaza City ahead of Israeli strikes on the area in the Strip’s north.
In a post on X, the IDF’s Arabic-language spokesman Col. Avichay Adraee published a map of the area that is to be evacuated, saying the warning came in light of attacks by terror groups against Israeli forces in the area. Adraee urged the Palestinians to head for western Gaza City.
Mohammed al-Mughayyir, an official with Gaza’s Hamas-run civil defense rescue agency, told AFP that the death toll from Israeli strikes on Friday had risen to at least 40.
WAFA, the Palestinian Authority’s official news agency, said that an elderly Palestinian couple was killed Friday by Israeli artillery fire near Zeitoun, another Palestinian was killed in an airstrike on Gaza City’s Shejaiya neighborhood and three were killed in an airstrike on a school housing displaced people in central Gaza City.
According to WAFA, two more Palestinians were killed in drone strikes on Jabalia and Beit Hanoun, also in northern Gaza.
Hamas’s civil defense agency also reported at least five people — a couple and their three children — had been killed Friday when their tent was struck in the Al-Mawasi area of the southern city of Khan Younis.
Agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal said the deceased woman had been pregnant.
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The IDF did not immediately comment on those reported strikes. The military says it takes precautionary steps to minimize harm to civilians, accuses Hamas of embedding itself in civilian infrastructure, including schools, to carry out attacks on Israel and Israeli troops.
Smoke rises to the sky following an Israeli strike in Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, April 24, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
The military said its fighter jets had on Friday afternoon carried out several strikes in the Tel Sultan neighborhood of Rafah, south of Khan Younis, in an attempt to kill gunmen who fired an RPG at an army Humvee, and possibly also opened fire with light arms.
The attack seriously wounded a soldier from the IDF’s 205th Reserve Armored Brigade’s 5250th Battalion, and lightly injured two more troops, the military said.
Meanwhile, the Hamas civil defense agency on Friday said the toll from an Israeli airstrike on a house in northern Gaza’s Jabalia the previous day had risen to 23.
“Civil defense teams recovered 11 bodies last night and this morning following the Israeli bombing that targeted a residential house … in Jabalia,” Mohammed al-Mughayyir, an official with the agency, told AFP.
“This is in addition to the 12 victims recovered at the time of the attack yesterday,” he added.
IDF troops are seen in the Morag Corridor area in the southern Gaza Strip, April 21, 2025. (Emanuel Fabian/Times of Israel)
The IDF said on Thursday that it had struck a Hamas “command and control center” in the area of Jabalia, without specifying the target.
Over 2,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since Israel resumed hostilities there on March 18, out of more than 51,400 killed since the war there was sparked by the Hamas onslaught of October 7, 2023, according to the Hamas-controlled health ministry.
The figures cannot be independently verified, and do not distinguish between combatants and civilians. Israel says it has killed some 20,000 combatants in battle as of January, and another 1,600 terrorists inside Israel during the Hamas onslaught.
The onslaught saw thousands of terrorists storm southern Israel to kill some 1,200 people and take 251 hostages. Fifty-nine hostages remain in Gaza, including the body of a soldier killed fighting in the 2014 war there.
Israel’s toll in the ground offensive against Hamas in Gaza and in military operations along the border with the Strip stands at 412. The toll includes a police officer killed in a hostage rescue mission and two Defense Ministry civilian contractors.
