4 more Israeli soldiers killed in battles in southern, central Gaza

The Israeli army on Tuesday said four more soldiers were killed in fighting with Palestinian groups in southern and central Gaza Strip.

Six others troops were seriously wounded in the battles, the military said in a statement cited by the Times of Israel news website.

As many as 180 Israeli soldiers have been killed in the besieged enclave since the start of the ground operation on Oct. 27. The military death toll since the onslaught on Gaza in October, however, has risen to 514.

Israel has pounded the Gaza Strip since a cross-border attack by the Palestinian group Hamas on Oct. 7, killing at least 23,084 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injuring 58,926 others, according to local health authorities.

Around 1,200 Israelis are believed to have been killed in the Hamas offensive.

About 85% of Gazans have been displaced, while all of them are food insecure, according to the UN. Hundreds of thousands of people are living without shelter, and ⁠less than half of aid trucks are entering the territory than before the start of the conflict.