Two IDF reservists killed, one seriously wounded in fighting in central Gaza
IDF says pair killed in blast near Netzarim Corridor, bringing ground op toll to 263; Hamas health ministry claims dozens killed in strikes, including five-day-old infant in Rafah
Two reservists were killed and another was seriously injured during fighting in the central Gaza Strip on Sunday, the Israel Defense Forces announced on Monday evening.
The pair were named as:
- Master Sgt. (res.) Ido Aviv, 28, of the Yiftah Brigade’s 9232nd Battalion, from Karmiel.
- Master Sgt. (res.) Kalkidan Meharim 37, of the Carmeli Brigade’s 223rd Battalion, from Petah Tikva.
Their deaths brought the toll of slain troops in the IDF’s ground offensive against the Hamas terror group to 263.
An initial IDF investigation found that the pair were killed, and another soldier of the 223rd Battalion was seriously wounded, as a result of an explosion during a battle with gunmen near the so-called Netzarim Corridor. The cause of the blast itself was still being probed.
The corridor, built around a 6.8-kilometer-long road south of Gaza City, enables the IDF to carry out raids in northern and central Gaza while allowing Israel to control access to the north for Palestinians seeking to return after fleeing south. It also enables Israel to coordinate deliveries of humanitarian aid directly to northern Gaza.
The Yiftah Armored Brigade and the Carmeli Infantry Brigade were deployed to central Gaza last week after several months of operating on Israel’s northern border.
The two reserve brigades have been tasked with assuming responsibility for the Netzarim Corridor, as well as securing a US-led project to bring aid into the Palestinian enclave via a floating pier.
In a statement over the weekend, the IDF said that the two brigades, operating under the 99th Division alongside combat engineers and the Multidomain Unit — also known as the Ghost Unit — had been carrying out pinpoint raids in the corridor area over the past week.
“The raids are taking place while [the troops are] protecting the corridor area… and carrying out actions that will allow the transfer of humanitarian aid,” the military said.
Israel has continued to work to alleviate the humanitarian crisis in Gaza over the past few weeks, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in Riyadh on Monday, noting that “measurable progress” had been made.
Israel stepped up its aid efforts considerably after seven World Central Kitchen (WCK) volunteers were killed in an IDF strike on April 1, leading to global outrage and increased international pressure. The WCK paused operations for close to a month in the wake of the strike, only announcing on Sunday that it was ready to resume serving the Palestinian enclave.
At the same time as fighting continued in central Gaza, the Hamas-run health ministry claimed on Monday that at least 40 Palestinians had been killed in the last day, of whom 22 were killed in the southernmost city of Rafah, where three buildings were hit in an airstrike.
According to records at the Abu Yousef al-Najjar Hospital, several children including a 12-year-old, a nine-year-old, and a five-day-old baby were among those killed in Rafah.
In Gaza City, in the north of the Gaza Strip, Hamas health officials stated that Israeli warplanes struck two houses, killing at least six people and wounding several others, while a strike on a house in the Al-Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza Strip was said by Hamas media to have killed three, including a local journalist. Six other people were killed in other central Gaza areas in separate Israeli airstrikes, the report added.
In total, the Gaza health ministry has said that at least 34,488 Palestinians have been killed and 77,643 injured in Gaza since the start of the war sparked by Hamas’s October 7 onslaught, although the figures cannot be independently verified, and do not differentiate between combatants and civilians.
Israel has said that it has killed some 13,000 Hamas gunmen in battle, in addition to some 1,000 terrorists killed inside Israel on October 7.
At the same time as airstrikes continued to be carried out across the Strip, the IDF announced Monday that combat engineers had demolished two attack tunnels belonging to Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror group in northern Gaza’s Beit Hanoun in recent weeks.
The two tunnels were said by the IDF to have been under “continuous intelligence and technological surveillance” since their discovery and until they were demolished, and did not cross into Israeli territory.
Since launching a ground offensive in the wake of the October 7 massacres, Israeli forces have worked to destroy Hamas’s vast tunnel network under Gaza. The network is believed to be between 350 and 400 miles long, and to have been constructed using more than 6,000 tons of concrete and 1,800 tons of steel.
The Palestinian Islamic Jihad took responsibility for firing rockets into Israel earlier on Monday after the IDF said that the Iron Dome had successfully intercepted one rocket fired at the southern city of Sderot.
The military also said that two long-range rockets were launched toward Ashdod, although both impacted in the sea near the southern coastal city, around 35 kilometers from the Strip.
No sirens were activated in Ashdod because the rockets were not headed toward populated areas.
The incident marked the first attack on Ashdod in more than a month, with the last rocket fire on the city carried out on March 25.
The war in Gaza erupted after Hamas’s October 7 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 253 hostages, mostly civilians, many amid acts of brutality and sexual assault.
