Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reacted Wednesday afternoon to a sniper attack by Hamas militants along the border with Gaza, which left one IDF soldier critically wounded.
"Our policy is clear: a determined and firm response against any attempt to break the quiet in the south," he said in a statement. "We will respond forcefully every time there is an attempt to break the quiet achieved in the south after Operation Protective Edge."
On Wednesday morning a soldier from the Bedouin Reconnaissance Battalion was shot by snipers as troops were guarding contractors working on the security fence next to Gaza. The wounded soldier, whose name has not yet been released for publication, was evacuated for medical treatment at Soroka Medical Center in Be'er Sheva.
IDF forces responded to the gunfire, and in ensuing gun battle Tayseer al-Ismary (33), head of the surveillance unit in Hamas's "armed wing" Al-Qassam Brigades, was killed by "as a result of gunfire and shrapnel from a tank shell," according to Hamas medical sources. Two other Palestinians were wounded.
