Eight Israeli soldiers were killed this Saturday morning in an explosion in Rafah, in the south of the Gaza Strip, the army announced. It was the deadliest incident for the Israeli Defense Forces in the Gaza Strip since January.
IDF Spokesperson
The names of three victims have so far been authorized for publication: they are Captain Wassem Mahmoud, 23, deputy commander of a company in the 601st combat engineering battalion, originally from Beit Jann; Sergeant Itai Amar, 19, resident of Kochav Yair in Judea and Samaria; Sergeant Shalom Menachem, resident of Beit El in Judea and Samaria.
The families of the other five soldiers have been informed and their names are expected to be released at a later date. According to an initial IDF investigation, the soldiers were all killed inside a Namer armored combat engineering vehicle (CEV). The soldiers were leading a convoy around 5 a.m. Saturday, after a nighttime offensive against Hamas in northwestern areas of Rafah’s Tel Sultan neighborhood, during which troops from the 401st Armored Brigade killed around 50 men armed, according to the IDF. The convoy was heading towards the buildings seized by the army, for the troops to rest after the night’s operation.
The Namer CEV, which was hit by a strong explosion, was the fifth or sixth vehicle in the convoy. It was not immediately possible to determine whether it was a pre-planted bomb or whether Hamas terrorists had approached the vehicle with an explosive device and placed it directly on the CEV . The military is also investigating the possibility that explosives stored outside the CEV contributed to the massive explosion. The investigation revealed that there were no shots fired during the incident and that the vehicle was not stationary when the explosion occurred. Their deaths bring to 307 the number of IDF soldiers killed during the ground offensive against Hamas and operations along the Gaza border. A police officer was killed during a hostage rescue operation last week, and a civilian Defense Ministry contractor was also killed in the Gaza Strip. The deadliest incident in Gaza occurred in January, when 21 soldiers were killed in an explosion following Hamas fire that caused two buildings to collapse.
