IDF announces deaths of three soldiers killed fighting in northern Gaza earlier today

Emanuel (Mannie) Fabian is The Times of Israel's military correspondent

From left: Staff Sgt. Eliyahu Haim Emsallem, Master Sgt. (res.) Gideon Chay DeRowe and Cpt. Israel Yudkin. (Courtesy)
From left: Staff Sgt. Eliyahu Haim Emsallem, Master Sgt. (res.) Gideon Chay DeRowe and Cpt. Israel Yudkin. (Courtesy)

Three Israeli soldiers were killed during fighting in the northern Gaza Strip today, the military announces.

The slain troops are named as:

Master Sgt. (res.) Gideon Chay DeRowe, 33, of the Combat Engineering Corps’ elite Yahalom unit, from Tel Aviv.

Cpt. Israel Yudkin, 22, an officer in the Kfir Brigade’s Netzah Yehuda Battalion, from Kfar Chabad.

Staff Sgt. Eliyahu Haim Emsallem, 21, of the Kfir Brigade’s Netzah Yehuda Battalion, from Ra’anana.

Emsallem and Yudkin were killed in a Hamas sniper attack in northern Gaza’s Beit Hanoun. Another soldier of the Netzah Yehuda Battalion was seriously wounded in the same incident, the IDF says.

DeRowe was killed by an explosive device in a building in northern Gaza. The military says another soldier of the Netzah Yehuda Battalion and a Yahalom reservist were also seriously wounded in the same blast.

Their deaths bring the toll of slain troops in the IDF’s ground offensive against Hamas and during operations along the Gaza border to 286. A civilian Defense Ministry contractor has also been killed in the Strip.

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