By Stan Goodenough
Jul 12, 2007
A young Israeli soldier gave his life early Thursday, and two of his fellow comrades were wounded, as Israel's endless battle against "Palestinian" terrorism continued.
According to IDF sources, 21-year-old Staff Sergeant Arbel Reich was killed in a firefight with Arabs who reportedly detonated a device near him and his men in the central Gaza Strip's Bureij camp.
The soldiers had been working to weed out terror cells in an ongoing operation that has seen at least 11 terrorists killed and more than 100 arrested in the past week.
Israel's efforts are also aimed at locating Kassam rocket launch sites and discovering and destroying tunnels used for smuggling weapons into Gaza.
Reich was the first Israeli soldier to be killed since last November.
At his funeral a few hours after he was killed, his friends described him as being "the salt of the earth."
He leaves his parents and two sisters.