JERUSALEM

The Israeli army on Thursday announced that one more soldier was killed in Wednesday's fighting in the northern part of the Gaza Strip.

The military statement identified the slain soldier as Cpt. Roy Miller, 21, a platoon commander in the army's Givati Brigade's Rotem Battalion.

It added that two other soldiers were seriously wounded in the same incident.

The Israeli public broadcaster KAN said Miller was killed in fighting in the Shejaiya neighborhood, eastern Gaza City.

On Wednesday evening, the Israeli army also announced one officer was killed and three others were seriously injured in clashes in northern Gaza.

The fatalities brought the number of Israeli soldiers killed since the start of the Israeli ground operation in Gaza on Oct. 27 to 324, while the army's total deaths since the launch of the Israeli onslaught against Gaza on Oct. 7 jumped to 677.

Israel, flouting a UN Security Council resolution demanding an immediate cease-fire, has faced international condemnation amid its continued brutal offensive on Gaza since an Oct. 7, 2023 attack by the Palestinian group Hamas.

Nearly 38,000 Palestinians have since been killed, mostly women and children, and over 87,000 others injured, according to local health authorities.

Over eight months into the Israeli war, vast tracts of Gaza lie in ruins amid a crippling blockade of food, clean water, and medicine.

Israel stands accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice, whose latest ruling ordered it to immediately halt its military operation in the southern city of Rafah, where over a million Palestinians had sought refuge from the war before it was invaded on May 6.

*Writing by Ahmed Asmar in Ankara