A few minutes ago, The Times of Israel carried a statement from the Israeli Defense Forces, which said that Israeli troops and soldiers of the Paratroopers Brigade, including senior officers, are working on missions to clear the southern city of Sderot of suspected Palestinian terrorists who infiltrated Israel in the last 48 hours.
"The Paratroopers Brigade is engaged in continuous battles, during which commanders and fighters of the unit are conducting searches in the city neutralizing terrorists," the official Israeli army said specifically in a new statement.
The Israeli Defense Forces said the brigade commander, Colonel Ami Bilton, the head of the brigade's training base and several other forces were sweeping the town of Sderot and "executing the gunmen."
More specifically, we have reports of serious exchanges of fire between Israeli forces and several Palestinian Hamas soldiers at a municipal swimming pool in the town of Sderot, which is a few kilometres from Gaza.
According to media reports there were several Israeli casualties, but several Hamas fighters were also killed.
At the same time, reports suggested that Hamas was holding Israeli civilians hostage, however, newer reports indicate that this issue has been resolved after the direct involvement of the Israeli army.
And other media from the country are talking about deadly attacks in other parts of the state as well. Street fighting in Israeli settlements has resulted in many casualties for Jerusalem, mainly due to the nature of urban fighting. In such environments it is difficult to exploit Israel's weapons advantage, since the majority of the combat work is carried out by the soldiers.
In particular, new posts on Twitter indicate that a number of Israeli soldiers were neutralized after exchanges of fire on the streets of the Shaar Hanegev Regional Council, which is located in the northwestern Negev in the Southern District of Israel. This area borders the Gaza Strip to the west, so today it is one of the focal points of the fighting.
Finally, The Times of Israel website reports that Israeli forces and Hamas soldiers are engaged in fighting in 7 to 8 different locations near the border of the Gaza Strip and Israel.
"We are still fighting. There are between seven and eight open fronts around Gaza and we still have soldiers fighting terrorists," Israeli military spokesman Richard Hecht said.
"We thought that by yesterday we would have full control," he added. "I hope we have until the end of today."
