https://arab.news/2u2qm
- Netanyahu said it was a “very difficult day” after seven soldiers were killed in combat in Gaza
JERUSALEM: Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said it was a “very difficult day” Wednesday after seven soldiers were killed in combat in Gaza, where the country's war against Hamas was in its 21st month.
“It is a very difficult day for the people of Israel,” Netanyahu wrote on X. “Our heroic combattants fell in the battle to defeat Hamas and free our hostages in the south of the Gaza Strip.”
An Israeli official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity in line with military regulations, said six of the soldiers’ names had been cleared for publication, while one was still being kept confidential.
It was a particularly deadly incident for Israel’s military inside Gaza. Over 860 Israeli soldiers have been killed since the Hamas attack on Oct. 7, 2023, including more than 400 during the fighting inside Gaza.
Also in the area of Khan Younis area, one soldier was seriously wounded Tuesday by weapons fire, the military said.
Al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas’s military wing, said on its Telegram channel it had ambushed Israeli soldiers taking cover inside a residential building in southern Gaza Strip.
Some of the soldiers were killed and other injured after they were targeted by a Yassin 105 missile and another missile south Khan Younis, Hamas said. Al-Qassam fighters then targeted the building with machine guns.
It was not immediately clear whether the two incidents were the same.
The deadly attack came as the Palestinian death toll inside Gaza crossed the 56,000 mark.
Gaza’s Health Ministry said Tuesday that Israel’s 21-month military operation in Gaza has killed 56,077 people.
Hamas in its 2023 attack on southern Israel killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took 251 others hostage. Many hostages have been released by ceasefire or other agreements.
The death toll is by far the highest in any round of Israeli-Palestinian fighting. The ministry doesn’t distinguish between civilians and combatants but says more than half of the dead were women and children.
The ministry said the dead include 5,759 who have been killed since Israel resumed fighting on March 18, shattering a two-month ceasefire.
Israel says it only targets militants and blames civilian deaths on Hamas, which operates in heavily populated areas. Israel says over 20,000 Hamas militants have been killed, though it has provided no evidence to support that claim. Hamas has not commented on its casualties.
Also Wednesday, Israeli police said they were investigating the death of a woman from east Jerusalem who was pronounced dead at a checkpoint after arriving with “serious penetrating injuries.”
Israel captured east Jerusalem, including the Old City and its holy sites sacred to Jews, Christians and Muslims, in the 1967 Mideast war in a move not internationally recognized. Palestinians want an independent state with east Jerusalem as its capital.