The IDF reported Sunday that Staff Sergeant Betzalel Zvi Kovach, 20, a soldier in the Netzah Yehuda Battalion of the Kfir Brigade, from Jerusalem, succumbed to his wounds after being critically wounded in battle in northern Gaza's Beit Hanoun last Wednesday.
The army said that the circumstances of his injury are under investigation, including the possibility of friendly fire.
The IDF death toll since the outbreak of the war on October 7 has reached 635, and 282 in the ground offensive in Gaza.
Last Wednesday, the IDF reported that Master Sergeant Gideon Chay DeRowe, 33, from Tel Aviv, was killed in the fighting in northern Gaza. Meanwhile, Staff Sergeant Eliyahu Haim Emsallem, 21, from Ra'anana, and Captain Israel Yudkin, 22, from Kfar Chabad, were killed in a separate incident.
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Gideon Chay DeRowe, Eliyahu Haim Emsallem, Israel Yudkin
(Photo: IDF's Spokesperson's Unit)
According to the military, a Netzah Yehuda Battalion officer and a reservist from the Combat Engineering Corps' elite Yahalom unit were critically injured in the incident where Master Sergeant Chay DeRowe was killed. They were hurt by an explosive device that detonated in a building.
In the incident where Captain Israel Yudkin and Staff Sergeant Haim Emsallem were killed, a Kfir Brigade soldier was critically injured. All three were struck by sniper fire.