Explosive kills 7 Israeli soldiers in Gaza

Seven Israeli soldiers were killed on Tuesday in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis when their armored vehicle was struck by an explosive, an Israeli military official said on Wednesday.

It was a particularly deadly incident for Israel's military inside Gaza. Over 860 Israeli soldiers have been killed since the war began with the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack - including more than 400 during the fighting inside Gaza.

Also in the area of Khan Younis area, one soldier was seriously wounded on Tuesday by weapons fire, the military said.

Al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas’s military wing, said on its Telegram channel it had ambushed Israeli soldiers taking cover inside a residential building Tuesday in the southern Gaza Strip.

Some of the soldiers were killed and other injured after they were targeted by a Yassin 105 missile and another missile south Khan Younis, Hamas said. Al-Qassam fighters then targeted the building with machine guns.

It was not immediately clear whether the two incidents were the same.

The deadly attack came as the Palestinian death toll inside Gaza crossed the 56,000 mark.

Gaza’s Health Ministry said Tuesday that Israel’s 21-month military operation in Gaza has killed 56,077 people.

Hamas in its 2023 attack on southern Israel killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took 251 others hostage. Many hostages have been released by ceasefire or other agreements.

The death toll is by far the highest in any round of Israeli-Palestinian fighting. The ministry doesn’t distinguish between civilians and combatants but says more than half of the dead were women and children.

The ministry said the dead include 5,759 who have been killed since Israel resumed fighting on March 18, shattering a two-month ceasefire.

Associated Press