3 soldiers killed in northern Gaza Strip; hostage holders said incommunicado

The Israel Defense Forces on Sunday announced the deaths of three soldiers killed during fighting in the northern Gaza Strip in the past day, while Hamas-controlled officials in the Palestinian enclave claimed that dozens were killed or injured in an airstrike on a building.

The slain troops were named as:

• Sgt. First Class (res.) Idan Keinan, 21, from Ramat Gan.
• Cpt. Yogev Pazy, 22, from Giv’ot Bar
• Staff Sgt. Noam Eitan, 21, from Hadera

They all served with the Kfir Brigade’s Nahshon Battalion.

According to an initial IDF probe, Keinan was killed by sniper fire on Saturday in northern Gaza’s Beit Lahiya.

Pazy — a platoon commander — and Eitan, were killed on Sunday morning in an exchange of fire with Hamas operatives, also in the Beit Lahiya area. Another soldier with the battalion was seriously wounded in the same incident, the IDF said.

Their deaths brought Israel’s toll in the ground offensive against Hamas and during operations on the border to 378.

Pazy was the nephew of former IDF chief of staff and former war cabinet observer minister Gadi Eisenkot. Eisenkot’s son, Master Sgt. (res.) Gal Meir Eisenkot, 25, was killed while fighting in Gaza in early December, followed by his nephew, Sgt. Maor Cohen Eisenkot, 19, a day later.

Keinan was buried at the Kiryat Shaul cemetery at 4 p.m. He was survived by his parents, a sister, and a brother.

His sister Linoy wrote in a social media post that her brother “died as a hero.”

“How did they take you from us?” she asked. “I will never manage to get over a loss such as you.”

She also shared a message that he had written two months ago to his grandmother.

“If the Father in Heaven decides that someone needs to die for our people, it is the greatest merit in the world,” the soldier wrote. “I know what the dangers are and what could happen and I am at peace with that, and more than that, this is the path that I chose and this is the path that I believe every man in the country should choose.”

The war erupted on October 7, 2023, when Hamas led a devastating cross-border attack on Israel that killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians. The thousands of terrorists who burst into the south of the country also abducted 251 people to Gaza as hostages, of whom 97 remain in captivity, along with four others held for a decade.

The military said over the weekend that it was continuing operations in the northern Gaza areas of Jabalia and Beit Lahiya, which have been the targets of an intense offensive since early October.

According to local medics, tens of Palestinians were killed or injured in an Israeli strike on a multistory residential building in Beit Lahiya on Sunday.

The IDF in response to a query by The Times of Israel on the matter confirmed that the military had targeted several “terror targets” in the Beit Lahiya area overnight, but expressed skepticism over the causality numbers claimed by Hamas.

“The IDF calls on the media to be careful with the information published by Hamas and the Health Ministry — which operates as a communication arm of Hamas, as has been proven in several previous events,” the IDF said.

“It should be noted that in the recent period, evacuation efforts were made for the civilian population in order to move them from the combat area, alongside the effort to expand the humanitarian space in the Mawasi area,” the military continued, adding that it “IDF acts in a targeted manner and makes great efforts to avoid harming [civilians].”

Earlier on Sunday, an Israeli airstrike killed at least 10 people in the Bureij camp in the central Gaza Strip when a missile hit a house, Gazan medics said.

Hamas-controlled Gaza authorities do not distinguish between fighters and civilians in their updates.

The army sent tanks into Beit Lahiya and the nearby towns of Beit Hanoun and Jabalia, the largest of the Gaza Strip’s eight historic refugee camps, last month in what it said was a campaign to fight Hamas terrorists waging attacks and prevent them from regrouping.

It says it has killed hundreds of gunmen in those three areas, which residents said Israeli forces had isolated from Gaza City.

Meanwhile, a Hamas source told the Qatari-run al-Araby al-Jadeed newspaper Sunday that there has been no communication with commanders in the field responsible for holding the hostages for about a month as a result of strict security measures around the hostages.

The source said that the only way to save the remaining living hostages is via a negotiated agreement for their release that would include a ceasefire.

However, the source denied claims that Hamas political leaders no longer have command over fighters in Gaza and asserted that decisions are being coordinated at various levels. The source said that members of the Hamas military wing, the Qassam Brigades, have pledged their allegiance to Hamas’s new leadership, which is based in Qatar. The new leadership was installed after Israel last month killed long-time Hamas leader in Gaza Yahya Sinwar, the architect of the October 7 invasion and massacre, shortly after he had been selected as the overall leader of the terror group.

The source also reported that Hamas’s refusal to provide any information about the hostages, and in particular US citizens it is holding, without receiving something in return has caused Washington to increase pressure on negotiation mediators. He claimed Hamas had refused to provide information or video clips about the captives because the US did not give Hamas convincing indications about ending the fighting.

The source said Hamas had started a recruitment drive for more fighters, the second such campaign since the war started.

More than a year after the October 7, 2023, attacks, 97 hostages are believed to still be held captive in Gaza, including the bodies of at least 34 confirmed dead by the IDF. Over the past year, 109 hostages have been released, eight were rescued alive and the bodies of 37 hostages have been recovered by troops. Israel is also seeking the return of two civilians who crossed into Gaza a decade ago, along with the remains of two soldiers who were killed there in 2014.

On Saturday, there were rallies in various locations urging the government to reach a deal for the release of the hostages.

Talks mediated by Egypt and Hamas have so far failed to make progress toward a deal that would likely see hostages released in return for a ceasefire and Israel setting free hundreds of Palestinian security prisoners.

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 fighters. Israel says it has killed some 18,000 combatants in battle as of November 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.