4 Israeli soldiers dead in attack on tank
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DUGIT, Gaza (CNN) -- Four Israeli soldiers were killed Saturday when their tank ran over an explosive device, the Israel Defense Forces said.
The IDF said the tank, on a routine patrol, was in Palestinian territory 500 meters south of the Israeli settlement of Dugit in Gaza. The device was hidden near the fence that surrounds the settlement, the military said.
Izzedine al Qassam, the military wing of the Palestinian fundamentalist Islamic group Hamas, claimed responsibility for the attack. The organization said it planted the explosives to avenge the deaths of two Hamas activists killed near Beit Lahia in a clash with IDF troops earlier this week, according to the Israeli daily newspaper Haaretz.
The IDF delayed reporting the Saturday morning incident for 10 hours, till relatives were informed.
The attack was the fourth fatal instance of a tank driving over an explosive device in Gaza over the last year-and-a-half, according to Haaretz.
Last year, seven Israeli soldiers were killed in the three previous incidents in Gaza in which a tank ran over a bomb, Haaretz said. In December, the newspaper reported, Israeli helicopter gunships fired missiles at a Palestinian Authority compound in Gaza, killing a master militant bombmaker Israel believes was responsible for blowing up the three tanks.
Izzedine al Qassam, which claimed it had set the device in Saturday's explosion, has admitted responsibility for terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians in the past, as well as attacks against the Israeli military.
