Nearly 23 months after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack, the death toll among IDF soldiers in the Gaza war has reached 900, underscoring the grinding toll of the longest war in Israel’s history.
The figure includes 311 soldiers killed on Oct. 7–8, during Hamas’ cross-border assault and the ensuing battles along the Gaza border. Since then, another 589 soldiers have been killed, 456 of them in the ground offensive inside Gaza.
The Golani Brigade has suffered the highest losses, with 114 dead since the war began. Seventy-one of them were killed on Oct. 7, when Hamas overran IDF outposts along the border. Forty-nine of the brigade’s casualties were from the 13th Battalion and 43 from the 51st Battalion.
The Combat Engineering Corps lost 79 soldiers, including 17 from the Yahalom elite engineering unit and 17 from Unit 601. The Givati Brigade lost 70 soldiers, among them 23 from its reconnaissance unit and 19 from the Shaked Battalion.
The Nahal Brigade has lost 61 soldiers since Oct. 7, including 23 from its reconnaissance unit and 15 from the 931st Battalion. The Paratroopers Brigade has lost 47, 18 of them from the 202nd Battalion.
The Kfir Brigade, which is fighting in a Gaza ground operation for the first time since its establishment in 2005, has lost 35 soldiers. The Commando Brigade has lost 45 — 16 from Maglan, 14 from Egoz and 12 from Duvdevan. Nine more came from the Shaldag Unit and nine from Sayeret Matkal, the IDF’s top commando force.
Armored brigades have also suffered heavy losses: 32 from the 401st Brigade, including 15 from the 52nd Battalion; 29 from the 7th Brigade, including 20 from the 77th Battalion; 13 from the 188th Brigade; and nine from the 460th Brigade.
The Border Defense Corps lost 72 soldiers, 67 of them on Oct. 7, including members of local security squads, surveillance troops and female lookouts. Five more have died in Gaza since.
The military said 6,213 soldiers have been wounded since the war began: 925 seriously, 1,540 moderately and 3,748 lightly. Of those, 2,883 were injured in the Gaza ground offensive. Ten soldiers remain hospitalized in serious condition.
The most recent deaths came this month, when two soldiers were killed in operational accidents: Lt. Uri Gerlitz, who was killed in a blast from an IDF charge, and reserve Staff Sgt. Ariel Lubliner, who was killed in an apparent case of friendly fire.
Of the 900 fallen, 295 were reservists and 154 were career soldiers. Jerusalem lost 71 of its residents, Tel Aviv 24, Haifa 21 and the city of Modi’in-Maccabim-Re’ut 25. Many others came from small towns and farming communities across Israel.