Two more Israeli soldiers were killed Tuesday in fighting in the Gaza Strip, the military said. One of the dead was Capt. Dmitri Levitas, the Israel Defense Forces said on its Twitter account. It did not identify the other or say how the deaths occurred. At least 29 Israeli soldiers have died since the fighting began two weeks ago, more than twice as many as in the last Gaza ground war in 2009.
But the toll has been far greater on the Palestinian side. More than 600 Palestinians, many of them children, have been killed in the fighting, most by airstrikes, but also in ground combat after Israeli forces crossed the border into Gaza last week. Palestinian officials said several more people were killed in Israeli attacks on Wednesday, The Associated Press reported.
The IDF also said that its Iron Dome rocket defense system had shot down its 1,000th rocket. Hamas has fired hundreds of rockets at Israel since the fighting began.
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