Seven Israeli soldiers were killed in a single incident Tuesday in Gaza, marking one of the deadliest days for the Israeli army in its 21-month-old war against Hamas there.
The incident came just after Israel struck a ceasefire with Iran, bringing to close a different war that had subsumed attention for 12 days.
The seven men killed were all combat soldiers between 19 and 21. They died after a bomb planted on their armored vehicle exploded in Khan Younis and efforts failed to extinguish the resulting blaze, the IDF announced on Wednesday.
Their deaths bring the Israeli military death toll in Gaza to 440 as the war there grinds on. Israeli leaders say a continued offensive is needed to rid the enclave of terror, but their many critics — including allied nations and the majority of Israelis — say the war should end for reasons including an unlikelihood of defeating Hamas, the high toll on Palestinian civilians and the impediment fighting places to bringing home the 50 Israeli captives, living and dead, still held there.
“The scene in Gaza is difficult, the battles are difficult, and the burden is unbearable,” Israeli President Isaac Herzog said in a statement after the latest deaths were announced. “We bow our heads and embrace with pain and tears the bereaved and grieving families. We are all with you, in grief, with hugs and tears.”
The incident on Tuesday was one of the single deadliest for Israeli soldiers since the war’s start, with a death toll larger than all but a handful from the war’s fiercest period in the first half of 2024. The single highest daily death toll for Israeli troops — other than on Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas initiated the war by attacking Israel — came on Jan. 22, 2024, when 19 soldiers were killed in a single incident and another five died separately.
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