Five Israeli soldiers were killed and 14 others were wounded, two of them seriously, in an explosion and ambush during a military operation in northern Gaza, the Israeli military said Tuesday.
The troops were hit Monday night around 10 p.m. near the town of Beit Hanoun. According to a preliminary investigation by the military’s Southern Command, soldiers from the Netzah Yehuda Battalion of the Kfir Brigade were moving on foot in an area where Israeli tanks and engineering vehicles were operating when a series of explosive devices detonated.
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Staff Sgt. Meir Shimon Amar, 20, from Jerusalem; and Sgt. Moshe Nissim Frech, 20, from Jerusalem
(Photo: IDF Spokesperson's Unit)
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Sgt. First Class (res.) Benyamin Asulin, 28, from Haifa
(Photo: IDF Spokesperson's Unit)
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Staff Sgt. Noam Aharon Musgadian, 20, from Jerusalem
(Photo: IDF Spokesperson's Unit)
As wounded soldiers were being evacuated, the rescue team came under fire in what officials described as a coordinated ambush by Palestinian terrorists.
The five fallen soldiers were identified Tuesday as Sgt. First Class (res.) Benyamin Asulin, 28, from Haifa; Staff Sgt. Noam Aharon Musgadian, 20, from Jerusalem; Staff Sgt. Meir Shimon Amar, 20, also from Jerusalem; Staff Sgt. Moshe Shmuel Noll, aged 21, from Beit Shemesh; and Sgt. Moshe Nissim Frech, 20, from Jerusalem. The latter four served in the Netzah Yehuda Battalion (97th) of the Kfir Brigade. The fifth soldier’s name has not yet been released.
Since the start of Israel’s ground campaign in Gaza in late 2023, 446 Israeli soldiers have been killed, according to the military. A total of 888 soldiers have died since the beginning of the war. Thirty-nine of those deaths have occurred since the last hostage release deal.
The Netzah Yehuda unit had entered Beit Hanoun as part of a broader offensive launched Saturday night. A combined force from the 646th Reserve Paratroopers Brigade and the northern brigade of the Gaza Division targeted a fortified Hamas compound on the town’s outskirts. The area had been hit by Israeli airstrikes and artillery throughout the preceding week.
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The battalion, known in the past as the “Haredi Nahal” for its makeup of ultra-Orthodox soldiers, suffered its worst losses of the war in Monday’s incident. Prior to the attack, four of its soldiers had been killed since fighting began, including three in a roadside bombing in May.
The blast was the deadliest single incident for Israeli forces in Gaza since June, when eight soldiers were killed in Rafah by an anti-tank missile. It was also the most severe loss since a roadside bomb killed seven soldiers, including an engineering officer, in Khan Younis two weeks ago.