Over 6,000 members of the Israeli security establishment – including the army and the police – have been injured since the start of the war between Israel and Hamas and Hezbollah in Gaza and Lebanon, the Jerusalem Post reports Thursday, citing defense ministry figures.
"The numbers coming out are terrifying," the Israeli outlet wrote. Out of the 6,000 who have been wounded, more than 2,000 are permanently disabled, the report highlights.
"Nothing prepared the medical establishment for the onslaught of injuries resulting from the war over the last three months," the report says.
According to the Jerusalem Post, Israel’s Health Ministry warned the Knesset, only a month into the war, that Tel Aviv was not prepared to handle the massive number of injuries.
The Defense Ministry has said it works at "full capacity" to assist many wounded. Israel’s health sector is facing "chronic shortages," which continue to worsen, according to the Taub Center for Social Policy Studies.
"I have never seen a scope like this and an intensity like this," Edan Kleiman, head of the Israeli NGO Disabled Veterans Organization, said recently. Kleiman added that the number will jump to 20,000 once those with PTSD are included in the toll.
Three months since the start of Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, the Israeli army continues to face fierce resistance from Hamas’ Qassam Brigades and other groups in Gaza, falling into daily ambushes.
The Qassam Brigades said on Monday that they killed multiple Israeli soldiers in central Gaza’s Bureij Camp that day, indicating that they were killed while attempting to free a captive held by Hamas. The army claimed the deaths resulted from an accidental explosion aimed at destroying an underground Hamas facility.
Tel Aviv claims that the number of dead soldiers since the ground war was expanded on 27 October stands at 186. However, the number is expected to be much higher – as Israel is known to hide its losses through strict censorship laws imposed on what is reported in the media.
Hebrew media reported last month that the official number of wounded soldiers provided by Tel Aviv is only half of the actual toll, according to hospital records.
IDF publishes names of 5 more soldiers killed in central Gaza explosion in tunnel; army investigating what set off blast; Monday's death toll rises to 9. https://t.co/mstOS5pPR9
— Israel Radar (@IsraelRadar_com) January 9, 2024
The Israeli military is also facing heavy losses on the border with Lebanon, where Hezbollah has been striking bases, outposts, and gatherings of troops daily since 8 October. "Our operations have been very exhausting for the enemy, which has exercised extreme secrecy about its heavy losses," said Lebanese resistance leader Hassan Nasrallah in his most recent speech.
"The Israeli enemy does not acknowledge either the dead or the wounded, and this is part of its policy of general secrecy about its losses … The army's losses are three times more than the announced numbers," Nasrallah added.
