The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said eight Israeli soldiers were killed in a military vehicle in Rafah in an explosion or missile attack, the deadliest incident for Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip since January.
Israeli military spokesman Maj. Gen. Daniel Hagari said Israel was still working to confirm the exact details of the attack. The explosion occurred in the Tal al-Sultan area of Rafah just after 5 a.m. The eight soldiers who died were riding in a Namer armored combat engineer vehicle.
“Today we are reminded once again of the high price we are paying in this war, and that there are heroes who sacrifice their lives to defend the Israeli people,” Hagari told a news conference.
Israel has identified one of the dead soldiers as Capt. Wasem Mahmoud, a Druze man and deputy company commander in an engineer battalion. The government has not yet released the names of the other seven, and Haghari has called on people on social media to stop spreading the names of the soldiers the government has not yet released.
These deaths bring the IDF’s official death toll during the war in Gaza to 307. The attack is the deadliest since a Hamas RPG blast in January collapsed two buildings, killing 21 soldiers.
Hamas’s militant wing, the Qassam Brigades, said in a statement that they carried out an ambush on an enemy vehicle in the Tal as-Sultan area of Rafah.
Israel has in recent months called Rafah the last Hamas stronghold, the only remaining major city in the Gaza Strip that has not been destroyed since Israel invaded Gaza following an Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel.
President Biden and other Western allies have repeatedly warned Israel not to launch a ground invasion of Rafah, where the United Nations estimates more than one million Gaza residents have fled for safety.
A group of around 900 parents of IDF soldiers previously published a letter urging the government not to invade Rafah, quoting Israeli far-right politicians National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, saying they “will not agree to become bereaved parents to please Ben Gvir and Smotrich.”
Since early May, Israel has been conducting what its military calls “limited operations” to kill Hamas fighters and dismantle infrastructure used by Hamas.
According to Palestinian health officials, 37,000 people, most of them women and children, have died since Israel began its offensive into Gaza, and international relief groups have warned that Gaza’s entire population is facing severe food shortages.
