Two Israel Defence Forces soldiers were killed and eight were wounded, half of them seriously, when an Air Force helicopter crashed in the southern Gaza Strip on Tuesday night.

According to a preliminary military probe, the UH-60 Black Hawk had been en route to Rafah with a medical team to evacuate a seriously wounded soldier.

"It appears that the crash was not caused by enemy fire, and the cause is still being investigated," the IDF said.

The names of the soldiers who died will be made public at a later date, added the military.

There have been no changes to Israeli Air Forces activities over the Gaza Strip.

The death toll among Israeli troops since the start of the IDF ground incursion in Gaza on October 27 now stands at 340, and at 706 on all fronts since the Hamas-led October 7 massacre, according to official military data.

Additionally, Chief Inspector Arnon Zamora, a member of the Border Police’s Yamam National Counter-Terrorism Unit, was fatally wounded during a hostage-rescue mission in Gaza in June, and civilian defence contractor Liron Yitzhak was mortally wounded in May.