The newspaper "Haaretz" reported today that Israeli tanks unintentionally fired into Israeli territory on at least five occasions since the beginning of the war in Gaza. The report clarified that "in at least two instances, the gunfire caused damage to buildings. In one case, a tank fired two shells at Kibbutz Hanita, near the Lebanese border, resulting in the dismissal of the squad commander." In another incident, an Israeli shell hit the Sderot municipality building, causing minor damage to the exterior.
In the three other documented cases, a tank fired at a monitoring point within Israeli territory. Gunfire from a machine gun mounted on a tank targeted Israel, and a tank shell exploded in an open area in Moshav Ein Habesor near the southern part of the Gaza border. In response to the report, the Israeli army stated, "During the combat in the Gaza Strip, there were a limited number of cases of friendly fire leaking from the battlefield into Israeli territory, and each instance is being investigated individually, with necessary lessons learned."
