Twenty-one Israeli soldiers were killed in Gaza on Monday when two buildings designed to be demolished by their troops collapsed after a Hamas rocket attack— marking Israel’s deadliest military incident since the war began.
Three more soldiers died in fighting in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis, prompting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to call Monday “one of the hardest days” of the war.
The 21 dead soldiers were operating more than a third of a mile from the Israeli border town of Kissufim on Monday, with troops preparing to blow up two Hamas sites with planted explosives, the Times of Israel reported.
Israel Defense Forces spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said on Tuesday that as the soldiers were completing their duties, a terrorist appeared and fired a rocket-propelled grenade at a tank protecting ground soldiers.
The blast killed at least two soldiers and wounded several others, according to an IDF source, with a follow-up explosion setting off mines the army had placed around the two buildings.
“Buildings collapsed due to this explosion, while most of the power was inside and near them,” Hagari told reporters.
Twenty-one Israeli soldiers were killed when a Hamas terrorist fired a rocket-propelled grenade at the group and apparently triggered a planned demolition of two buildings by the Israel Defense Forces. Soldiers carry the casket for Master Sgt. Elkana Vizel, 35, squad commander for the 261st Brigade. AP
Hagari noted that while the mine explosion is still under investigation, it was likely caused by a second RPG fired at the troops.
The soldiers who died were part of the IDF’s 205th and 261st Brigades and ranged in age from 22 to 40, according to the Israeli military.
“The best children of this country, who volunteered to defend their homes and paid the highest price,” said IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Col. Hertzi Halevi in a statement describing the casualties. “We share their family’s grief over the weight loss, and they know that the pain is too much to bear.”
Map of where 21 Israeli soldiers were killed in a Hamas rocket attack in Gaza.
Halevi added that the military’s mission was to ensure that Hamas could no longer operate in the area and facilitate the return of Palestinians and Israelis who had lost their homes due to the war.
The incident was the single deadliest incident for the IDF since the start of the ground offensive into Gaza. The death toll of Israeli soldiers since putting boots on the ground now stands at 219.
Along with the 21 soldiers killed near the border, three additional soldiers were killed during an attack on Khan Younis, the largest city in southern Gaza, on Monday.
Loved ones are sobbing over the death of Cpt. Nir Benjamin, 29, who died in the explosion. Getty Images Family members gathered Tuesday for the funeral of Sgt. Maj. Matan Lazar, 32, from 261 Brigade. Getty Images
Given the two dozen deaths in 24 hours, Netanyahu described Monday as “one of the most difficult days” of the war.
“In the name of our heroes, for the sake of our lives, we will not stop fighting until absolute victory,” he said.
For that, the Israeli army has now surrounded Khan Younis in southern Gaza. The city recently saw its heaviest fighting since December, as the IDF focused on eliminating Hamas from the territory and finding and rescuing more than 130 hostages still in Gaza.
The 98th Division led the Khan Younis offensive, which began Sunday, with soldiers directing a series of airstrikes on Hamas sites there and confronting gunmen on the ground, the Times said.
The IDF continues its advance into southern Gaza, with Khan Younis surrounded by Israeli forces. Xinhua/Shutterstock
Fighting in Khan Younis has again forced countless Palestinians to flee further south or west after hundreds of thousands sought refuge in the city during the height of fighting in northern Gaza.
Heavy shelling and shelling in southern Gaza is likely to continue, as a temporary ceasefire agreement recently proposed by Israel appears to have failed.
Israel’s tentative pitch, which would have seen all hostages in Gaza released in phases in exchange for a two-month ceasefire, has been rejected by Hamas, an Egyptian official with knowledge of the talks told The Associated Press on Tuesday.
Smoke billowed over Khan Younis on Tuesday morning after an Israeli airstrike. AFP via Getty Images
The work proposal flatly rejects the two biggest conditions sought by Hamas: the freedom of all Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons and the withdrawal of the IDF from Gaza.
As fighting in Gaza continues to escalate, so does the risk of war in the region spreading, as Yemen’s Houthi terrorist group, which sympathizes with Hamas, vows that overnight airstrikes led by the US and the United Kingdom on several of its strongholds “will not go unanswered.”
The group claimed four of its governorates were hit as Western allies launched 18 airstrikes in the province, with 12 strikes hitting the capital Sana’a.
The IDF said its soldiers were killed trying to clear Hamas infrastructure so Gazans displaced by the war could return home. AP
The US and UK said in a statement that only eight sites had been hit by airstrikes in Yemen.
Western countries are expected to announce new sanctions against the Houthis in the coming days after relisting the group as a terrorist organization for repeated attacks on commercial ships in the Red Sea in a show of solidarity with Hamas.
“We will use the most effective means at our disposal to cut off the financial resources of the Houthis, where they are being used to fund these attacks,” UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak told his Parliament on Tuesday.
With Postal wire
Categories: Trending
Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
