Explosion that killed soldiers linked to Israeli effort
About 20 died in blast related to buffer zone
The Israeli military suffered its deadliest day of the Gaza Strip ground invasion Monday, announcing that 24 soldiers had been killed, about 20 of them in a single explosion inside the territory near the Israeli border.
The blast occurred after militants in Gaza fired toward a tank guarding an Israeli engineering unit that had been setting explosives inside Palestinian buildings with the intention of demolishing them, the Israeli military said at a news briefing Tuesday. In the firefight, the explosives went off, causing the buildings to collapse and killing most of the soldiers inside, the military said.
Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, the military’s chief spokesperson, said Tuesday night that two other soldiers, including a commander, were in a tank when it was hit by a rocket, but he did not clarify whether they were still alive. Hagari said that rescue units extracted the soldiers struck in the firefight.
Hagari said the soldiers in the building, who were reservists, had been working to demolish infrastructure near the border between Israel and Gaza so that people could safely return to their homes in southern Israel. Tens of thousands of people have been evacuated from Israeli communities near the Gaza border since Hamas-led terrorist attacks on Oct. 7.
Israel has been demolishing Palestinian homes in eastern Gaza to create a buffer zone between Israel and Gaza, according to three Israeli officials who spoke anonymously because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the issue. Critics of Israeli policy say the practice is part of a wider disregard for civilian housing and property.
Hamas’s military wing confirmed it carried out an attack on a building east of the Maghazi neighborhood in central Gaza on Monday, leading to an explosion that destroyed the building. The military wing said it had also hit a tank guarding the building and detonated mines in the area.
The deaths came as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu continued to struggle with domestic divisions over how to proceed in the war with Hamas, on top of international pressure over the enormous number of Palestinian deaths in Gaza and concerns about a broader regional war.
As Israeli politicians from the right and left expressed heartbreak over the losses, leading members of the government declared that the war should continue until Hamas is defeated.
Netanyahu said Israel had “experienced one of the most difficult days since the start of the war” and that the army was examining the incident.
“We need to learn the necessary lessons and do everything to preserve our soldiers’ lives,” he said in a statement Tuesday, adding: “We will not stop fighting until complete victory.”
On Tuesday, the Israeli military also said it had killed dozens of Hamas fighters over the previous 24 hours. The claim could not be independently verified.
Netanyahu’s stated goals of the war are eliminating Hamas and securing the release of the hostages taken during the Oct. 7 attacks, although some Israeli military leaders have said the two goals are incompatible in the short term. He faces mounting pressure to make a deal for the hostages’ release, even if that comes at the expense of eradicating the militant group.
President Isaac Herzog of Israel mourned the soldiers in a post on social media, saying news of the deaths had brought “an unbearably difficult morning.”
The military has released the names of all the soldiers who died in the explosion, ranging in age from 22 to 40. Nineteen of them were from the same brigade. It has also named three paratroopers killed Monday in Gaza.
Soldiers’ deaths can carry even heavier weight in Israel, a small country where military service is largely mandatory and a rite of passage.
Internationally, Netanyahu faces criticism over the widespread destruction in Gaza, where health officials say the death toll has surpassed 25,000 — by far the largest loss of life in a regional war with Israel in the past 40 years. Almost the entire population of 2.2 million has been displaced but remains sealed in Gaza, and international aid groups say disease is rampant and widespread hunger is nearing starvation levels.