4 IDF troops killed, several hurt during fighting in southern Gaza’s Rafah
Paramedic is first female soldier to be killed in ground offensive against Hamas; soldiers had entered booby-trapped building
Emanuel (Mannie) Fabian is The Times of Israel's military correspondent
The Israel Defense Forces on Wednesday announced the deaths of four Israeli soldiers and the injury of several others during fighting in the southern Gaza Strip a day prior.
The slain troops were named as:
- Cpt. Daniel Mimon Toaff, 23, a deputy company commander in the Givati Brigade’s Shaked Battalion, from Moreshet
- Staff Sgt. Agam Naim, 20, a paramedic with the 401st Armored Brigade’s 52nd Battalion, from Mishmarot
- Staff Sgt. Amit Bakri, 21, of the Givati Brigade’s Shaked Battalion, from Yoshivia
- Staff Sgt. Dotan Shimon, 21, of the Givati Brigade’s Shaked Battalion, from Elazar
Their deaths brought Israel’s toll in the ground offensive against Hamas in Gaza and in military operations along the border with the Strip to 348. The toll includes a police officer killed in a hostage rescue operation and a civilian Defense Ministry contractor.
Naim was the first female soldier to have been killed during the IDF’s ground offensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Dozens of female soldiers were killed during Hamas’s terror onslaught on October 7.
According to an initial IDF probe, the four soldiers were killed after entering a booby-trapped building in the Tel Sultan neighborhood of Rafah. Further details were under investigation by the army.
In the same incident, an officer and two soldiers in the Shaked Battalion were seriously wounded, and two soldiers of the battalion were moderately wounded, the military said.
According to IDF officials, Hamas operatives booby-trapped a vast number of homes in Rafah and have waited in tunnels for troops to arrive. During the operation in Rafah, the IDF said, it encountered entire neighborhoods that were booby-trapped by Hamas, and not just single buildings as it had seen in other parts of the Strip.
Last week, the IDF declared that Hamas’s Rafah Brigade had been defeated after at least 2,308 of its operatives had been killed and over 13 kilometers’ (8 miles’) worth of tunnels had been destroyed. Military officials have warned that even after a Hamas unit is dismantled, smaller cells of terror operatives would likely remain and continue to try and carry out attacks.
In a separate incident on Tuesday, an officer in the Givati Brigade’s Reconnaissance Unit was seriously hurt by RPG fire in Rafah, the military added.
The war erupted when Hamas-led terrorists rampaged through southern communities on October 7, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking 251 hostages to Gaza, while committing brutal atrocities.
The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry says more than 41,000 people in the Strip have been killed or are presumed dead in the fighting so far, though the toll cannot be verified and does not differentiate between civilians and fighters. Israel says it has killed some 17,000 combatants in battle and another 1,000 terrorists inside Israel on October 7.
Israel has said it seeks to minimize civilian fatalities and stresses that Hamas uses Gaza’s civilians as human shields, fighting from civilian areas including homes, hospitals, schools, and mosques.
