Four soldiers killed, officer seriously wounded in northern Gaza fighting

Four Israeli soldiers were killed and an officer was seriously wounded during fighting in the northern Gaza Strip earlier Tuesday, the Israel Defense Forces announced, as Palestinians accused Israel of killing dozens of people in a strike in the Beit Lahiya area.

The IDF named the slain soldiers as Cpt. Yehonatan Joni Keren, 22, from Moledet; Staff Sgt. Nisim Meytal, 20, from Hadera; Staff Sgt. Aviv Gilboa, 21, from Neve Tzuf and Staff Sgt. Naor Haimov, 22, from Rosh Ha’ayin.

They all served with the elite Multidomain Unit, or “Ghost” Unit, and were killed in fighting in the Jabalia area, which has been the focus of the recent IDF offensive in northern Gaza.

Later Tuesday, the the IDF has presented the families of the four soldiers with an initial probe of the incident in which they were killed. The incident occurred during the early morning hours, as the troops of the elite unit entered a building in Jabalia in order for it to be used for the army’s ongoing operations in the area.

In one of the upper floors of the building, an explosive device was detonated, hitting the soldiers, the probe found. The blast killed four soldiers on the spot, and wounded three others, including one seriously.

Israel’s toll in the ground offensive against Hamas in Gaza and in military operations along the border with the Strip stands at 367.

IDF says it’s probing reports 93 killed in north Gaza strike

Meanwhile, at least 93 Palestinians were killed and dozens wounded in an Israeli strike on a residential building in the northern Gaza town of Beit Lahiya on Tuesday, the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry said.

The IDF said it was probing the report and cautioned that the death tolls provided by Hamas were often not accurate, cannot be verified and do not differentiate between civilians and combatants.

However, images and photos from the scene appeared to show widespread carnage.

Medics said at least 20 children were among the dead.

“A number of victims are still under the rubble and on the roads, and ambulance and civil defense crews cannot reach them,” the ministry said in a statement.

The Israeli military said it was aware of claims of casualties, but stressed that the number provided by Hamas authorities may be inaccurate. It said the incident is still under investigation.

“The IDF calls on the media to be careful with information published by Hamas, as has been proven in several previous events,” the military said.

The IDF stated that it “acts in a targeted manner and makes efforts to avoid harming uninvolved [civilians].”

The Beit Lahiya area had been given an evacuation order earlier this month as the IDF launched a new offensive in northern Gaza. Israel says its campaign aims to destroy Hamas, whose terror operatives had returned to the area in the yearlong war.

“We will emphasize again that this is an active combat zone,” the IDF added.

Video footage obtained by Reuters showed several bodies wrapped in blankets on the ground outside a bombed four-story building. More bodies and survivors were being retrieved from under the wreckage as neighbors rushed to help with the rescue.

“There are tens of martyrs  — tens of displaced people were living in this house. The house was bombed without prior warning. As you can see, martyrs are here and there, with body parts hanging on the walls,” Ismail Ouaida, a witness who was helping to recover bodies, said in the video.

On Monday, the Palestinian Civil Emergency Service said around 100,000 people were marooned in Jabalia, Beit Lahiya, and Beit Hanoun without medical or food supplies. Reuters could not verify the number independently.

The Hamas-run health ministry said on Tuesday those wounded in the strike could not receive care as doctors had been forced to evacuate the nearby Kamal Adwan Hospital.

“Critical cases without intervention will succumb to their destiny and die,” the ministry said in a statement.

The IDF said Monday troops had withdrawn from the Kamal Adwan Hospital, having wrapped up a raid launched Friday against Hamas operatives it said were using the hospital as a command and control base.

Gaza’s emergency service said its operations had come to a halt because of the three-week Israeli assault into northern Gaza.

Israel says it will use agencies other than UNRWA to bring aid to Gaza

Tuesday’s strike came a day after the Knesset passed legislation to significantly limit the operations of the United Nations Palestinian refugee relief agency UNRWA inside the country, the West Bank, and Gaza, alarming some of Israel’s Western allies who fear it will worsen the already dire humanitarian situation in the Strip.

The Foreign Ministry said it will use other UN and international agencies to ensure that aid reaches Gaza.

“Israel is committed to international law and to providing humanitarian aid to Gaza, and will continue to act on this subject with UN agencies and international organizations such as the World Food Program, UNICEF, the World Health Organization and a number of other organizations, this while complying with its international obligations,” the ministry said.

The Foreign Ministry said Hamas “has infiltrated UNRWA in Gaza widely and deeply.”

“UNRWA employees were involved in the horrific 7 October massacre,” said the ministry. “Moreover, Israel handed over to the UN details about an additional 100 Hamas operatives who are employed by UNRWA, yet UNRWA has not taken any measures to handle the issue, and is not moving forward with any serious steps to deal with the terrorist operatives in its ranks.”

It said UNRWA has also not issued complaints or public statements about Hamas’s use of its facilities in Gaza.

“It is not just a few rotten apples, as UN Secretary-General [Antonio] Guterres is trying to claim. UNRWA in Gaza is a rotten tree entirely infected with terrorist operatives,” the ministry said, calling on those who care about Israel and Gaza to replace UNRWA with other agencies.

An Israeli official told The Times of Israel that UNRWA “was already limited and reduced” in Gaza in recent months, and is not the leading agency providing aid in Gaza anymore, the official continued, as Israel has been systematically “minimizing its activities” in the Strip.

“The Knesset vote strengthens processes that are already happening,” the official said, pointing at UNICEF taking the lead on polio vaccinations, and the UN World Food Program taking the lead on food distribution.

“It’s hard to know where Hamas ends and UNRWA begins,” the official added.

Israel alleges that more than 10 percent of UNRWA’s staff in Gaza have ties to terrorist factions and that educational facilities under the organization’s auspices consistently incite hatred of Israel and glorify terror.

In February, the IDF revealed the existence of a subterranean Hamas data center directly beneath UNRWA’s Gaza headquarters. The IDF has also repeatedly targeted Hamas command centers and gunmen hiding out in UNRWA schools.

The official argued that Guterres is uninterested in investigating UNRWA employees’ involvement in the October 7 attack because he would have to admit that the organization violated its neutrality in the most blatant way.

Guterres, continued the official, also has an interest in using overblown claims about a humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza to push for an end to the war.

When Israel presented officials from allied countries with evidence of dozens of UNRWA employees working for Hamas and involved in attacks against Israel, said the official, “they don’t disagree, they just say now is not the right time” to take action against the agency.

However, UNICEF has warned that the Israeli legislation could result in the deaths of more children and represent a form of collective punishment for Gazans if fully implemented.

“So a decision such as this suddenly means that a new way has been found to kill children,” charged UNICEF spokesperson James Elder.

The war in Gaza erupted after Hamas’s October 7, 2023, massacre, which saw some 3,000 terrorists burst across the border into Israel by land, air and sea, killing some 1,200 people and seizing 251 hostages, mostly civilians, amid acts of brutality and sexual assault.

The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry says more than 42,000 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 combatants. Israel says it has killed some 17,000 combatants in battle as of August and another 1,000 terrorists inside Israel on October 7.

Talks led by the US, Egypt, and Qatar to broker a ceasefire resumed this week after multiple abortive attempts. Egypt’s president proposed a two-day truce in exchange for some of the 97 hostages still held by Hamas for Palestinian security prisoners, followed by talks within 10 days on a permanent ceasefire.

Israel has repeatedly said the war will go on until Hamas is eradicated while the Palestinian terror group has ruled out any end to fighting until IDF forces leave Gaza.