Seven Israeli soldiers were killed on Tuesday in the southern Gaza Strip after their armored vehicle was hit by a powerful explosive device, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) announced on Wednesday.
The incident in the city of Khan Younis is one of the deadliest for the IDF in months.
According to an initial military investigation, a Hamas operative planted a bomb on the soldiers’ Puma armored combat engineering vehicle (CEV). The resulting blast caused the vehicle to catch fire. Efforts to extinguish the blaze were unsuccessful, and all seven soldiers inside were killed.
The soldiers who lost their lives, have all served with the 605th Combat Engineering Battalion, were named on Wednesday as:
Lt. Matan Shai Yashinovski, 21, Staff Sgt. Ronel Ben-Moshe, 20, Staff Sgt. Niv Radia, 20, Sgt. Ronen Shapiro, 19, Sgt. Shahar Manoav, 21, Sgt. Maayan Baruch Pearlstein, 20 and Staff Sgt. Alon Davidov, 2
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wrote on the social media platform X. “Our heroic combatants fell in the battle to defeat Hamas and free our hostages in the south of the Gaza Strip,” he wrote. “Together with all the citizens of Israel, my wife and I mourn and grieve the fall of seven of our soldiers... May their memory be a blessing.”
The Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, posted on Telegram that its operatives had targeted Israeli forces in Khan Younis on Tuesday, though it was not confirmed if this was the same attack.
The deaths raise the number of Israeli soldiers killed during the ground offensive in Gaza to 440. The war began after Hamas’s attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, which killed about 1,200 people and saw roughly 250 taken hostage.
The deaths raise the number of Israeli soldiers killed during the ground offensive in Gaza to 440. The war began after Hamas’s attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, which killed about 1,200 people and saw roughly 250 taken hostage. According to Palestinian health authorities cited in the reports, the subsequent Israeli military campaign has killed more than 50,000 people in Gaza.
