The IDF on Monday morning cleared for publication the identity of a reservist soldier who was killed Sunday morning in an operational accident near the Gaza border. Sgt. Maj. (res.)Dejen Daniel Sahalo, 41, from Rehovot, served in the Combat Engineering Corps’ 5067th Battalion. The accident, believed to have involved the overturning of a military truck, occurred near Kibbutz Nahal Oz, close to the border fence adjacent to Gaza’s Shijaiyah neighborhood. The incident is under investigation.
Reservist forces from the Jerusalem Brigade (Brigade 16) are currently operating in the area to expand the buffer zone in the northern Gaza Strip.
On Sunday, the IDF also announced Captain Noam Ravid, 23, from Sha’arei Tikva, and Staff Sergeant Yaly Seror, 20, from Omer—both servicemen in the elite Yahalom Unit of the Combat Engineering Corps—were killed Saturday by an explosion inside a tunnel shaft in Rafah in southern Gaza. Two other soldiers were wounded in the same incident, one seriously and the other moderately. Both Ravid and Seror were laid to rest Sunday evening in their respective hometowns.
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Roughly 90 minutes prior to the fatal incident in Rafah, two armored corps soldiers from the 46th Battalion of the 401st Brigade were wounded in an explosion near their tank in the Daraj Tuffah neighborhood in Gaza City, where Israeli forces are working to extend the buffer zone near the border. One soldier was seriously injured. An initial IDF assessment suggests the explosion may have been caused by a tank shell that detonated due to a malfunction, though the possibility of a Hamas mortar strike is also being examined.
On Thursday, Paratroopers Brigade soldier Cpl. Niv Dayag, 19, from Ramat HaSharon, was killed in a road accident on Route 98 in the Golan Heights. Three other soldiers—two from the 890th Battalion and one from the Golan Division headquarters—were lightly injured and evacuated for medical treatment. The accident occurred at Eliad Junction in the southern Golan, near the community of Ramat Magshimim. The military Humvee they were traveling in hit a guardrail, overturned, and caught fire. All passengers were injured, and the incident remains under investigation.
Meanwhile, the IDF began issuing tens of thousands of emergency call-up orders (Tzav 8) on Saturday night, in preparation for an expanded operation in the Gaza Strip expected in the coming days. Many of the reserve brigades will be mobilized for the sixth or seventh time since the war began 17 months ago. They will be deployed to other fronts—such as the northern border or the West Bank—to replace regular army units that will lead the renewed offensive in Gaza.