Israel-Gaza War: IDF says 8 Israeli soldiers killed in Rafah

Eight Israeli soldiers were killed in an explosion in the south of the Gaza Strip on Saturday, the Israeli military said. It was the army’s deadliest incident in the war since January.

The soldiers were in an armored vehicle that was rocked by a violent explosion. According to preliminary investigations, the explosion resulted in the detonation of explosive “technical material,” the army said.

The incident occurred during an operation in the Tal al-Sultan neighborhood of Rafah, which has been a major target of Israeli forces in recent weeks.

Previously, Hamas’s armed wing had said it had fired a rocket at an armored vehicle from an ambush.

The soldiers were returning from a night mission in the Tal al-Sultan district of Rafah at around 05:15 local time (03:15 CET) when their armored vehicle apparently exploded.

Israeli media reported that Israeli forces killed 50 fighters in the operation, and the Hamas-run Health Ministry in the Gaza Strip said 30 Palestinians had been killed in the past 24 hours.

So far, seven of the eight soldiers have been named, Israeli media reported on Sunday morning.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel had paid “a heartbreaking price in our just war to defend our homeland,” but his country would continue the war “to secure our existence and our future.”

Defense Minister Yoav Gallant also expressed his regret, saying: “The pain that comes with such a loss is immense.”

Israeli ground troops remain deployed in Rafah to drive Hamas out of its “last major stronghold.”

Aid organizations warned of a catastrophic humanitarian situation in Rafah, where, according to the UN, around one million Palestinians are seeking refuge.

On Wednesday, World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said a significant portion of the Gaza Strip’s population was facing “catastrophic hunger and famine-like conditions.”

Several leading politicians, including US President Joe Biden, called on Israel not to carry out a major attack on Rafah.

According to the Hamas-run Health Ministry, more than 37,000 Palestinians have been killed and many hundreds of thousands more injured or displaced since the war began.

The war began after Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, killing about 1,200 people and taking 251 others hostage to Gaza.