Eight Israeli soldiers killed in Rafah explosion
An explosion in southern Gaza killed eight Israeli soldiers Saturday, the military said, marking one of the deadliest single attacks on Israeli forces since Oct. 7.
Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, an IDF spokesman, said the attack, which occurred in the early morning in the Tel al-Sultan area in western Rafah, was caused either by explosives planted by Hamas or by an anti-tank missile.
“We need to defeat the Rafah Brigade of Hamas and we are doing this with determination,” he said.
The soldiers, all members of a combat engineering unit, had been traveling in an armored carrier, conveying engineering tools that include explosive materials, in violation of standard practice, the military said.
The attack may have caused the material on board the vehicle to explode, the military said. The deadly incident was being investigated.
Hamas’ military wing claimed the vehicle had been ensnared in a prepared minefield, which set off the explosion.
“Today we paid another heartbreaking price in our just war for the defense of the homeland,” Prime Minister Netanyahu said Saturday. “With deep sorrow, in heavy mourning, I bow my head together with all the citizens of Israel and mourn the fall of our heroic warriors.”
Israel identified one of the soldiers killed in Saturday’s attack as Captain Wassem Mahmoud, Deputy Company Commander in the Engineering Battalion. The names of the other seven were not yet released.
News of the deaths came amid reports that officials almost called off the daring mission last week in Gaza that saved four hostages kidnapped by Hamas terrorists.
At 10 a.m. on June 8, Shin Bet security agency Director Ronen Bar and Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi learned that conditions were concerning at one of the two sites in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza where the hostages were being held, the Times of Israel reported, citing Hebrew-language Channel 12.
The fear was that the conditions would make it difficult to enter simultaneously both locations, which were just 650 feet apart from each other. The coordinated timing was a crucial part of the plan to prevent the terrorists from harming the hostages during the raid.
Security chiefs had a one-hour window to decide whether to proceed with the operation, which also involved the elite Yamam counter-terrorism police unit.
It’s not clear what the problem exactly was or how it was addressed, but at 10:55 a.m., Bar and Halevi signed off on the raid, resulting in Israeli forces freeing the hostages — Noa Argamani, 26, Almog Meir Jan, 21 Andrey Kozlov, 27 and Shlomi Ziv, 41 — and safely evacuating them to Israel.
The mission, which was in the works for weeks, involved Israeli teams that disguised and embedded themselves among Gazans in the refugee camp.
The undercover operatives shopped at a local market and even rented a home near the buildings where the hostages were held to gather intelligence and to monitor the targeted sites.
On the day of the rescue, Argamani was easily retrieved and sent back to Israel via helicopter after special forces killed the terrorists guarding her. The second rescue of the three men, however, devolved into a firefight, and Yamam commander Arnon Zamora, 36, was fatally wounded.
Footage released by the IDF on Friday showed members of a paratrooper reconnaissance unit helping rescue Israeli hostages and special forces who were trapped amid enemy fire and a vehicle breakdown, TOI reported.
They were transferred to armored vehicles, which took them to the Netzarim Corridor, where they then were airlifted to a hospital in Israel.
The Hamas-backed Gaza health ministry said 274 Palestinians were killed during the operation, though it didn’t make clear how many were Hamas terrorists. Israel has said it knew of roughly 100 who were killed in the fighting, including civilians.
In other developments:
- The US-built humanitarian pier constructed off the coast of Gaza was dismantled again this week and moved back to Israel over concerns of rough seas, US Central Command said.
- Intense fighting roiled the Gazan city of Rafah Saturday, with the IDF launching attacks in the enclave’s central, eastern and western areas, according to the Jerusalem Post.
- *Terrorists in Gaza launched five projectiles from a humanitarian zone in central Gaza toward nearby Kibbutz Kissufim in Israel, the IDF said. Two of the projectiles entered Israeli territory and fell in open territory, while the other three landed inside Gaza.
With Post wires.
