Two IDF soldiers killed, six wounded in southern Gaza fighting

Two Israel Defense Forces soldiers were killed on Thursday, and at least six were wounded in separate incidents amid fighting in the southern Gaza Strip, the military announced.

The soldiers were named Friday morning as Sgt. Yishai Elyakim Urbach, 20, of the Combat Engineering Corps’ 605th Battalion, from Zichron Yaakov, and Staff Sgt. Yam Frid, 21, of the Golani Brigade’s reconnaissance unit, from Sal’it.

In the first incident, Hamas operatives fired an RPG at a building in Rafah’s Jenina neighborhood, where troops were stationed. The building partially collapsed on the soldiers, killing Urbach and wounding two others, including one seriously and one moderately.

During the second incident, which took place some two hours later in the same area, an armored personnel carrier was hit by an explosive device, killing Frid and wounding four others, including three soldiers — among them two officers — listed in serious condition.

In statements on Telegram, Hamas claimed its operatives ambushed an Israeli 12-man force inside a house in the Tanur neighborhood in the eastern Rafah area (adjacent to Jenina) with two RPGs, and set off an explosive device next to troops nearby.

The incidents brought Israel’s death toll in the ground offensive against Hamas in Gaza and in military operations along the border with the Strip to 418.

IDF kills Hamas kidnapper, strikes 150 targets within 72 hours

The IDF and Shin Bet announced Thursday that a Hamas terrorist involved in the kidnapping of Yaffa Adar, 85, during the October 7, 2023, onslaught was killed in an airstrike in Gaza City a day earlier.

The terrorist was identified as Mohammed Rasmi Marzouk Baraka, a member of Hamas’s intelligence division.

Baraka could be seen in infamous footage showing the abduction of Adar from Kibbutz Nir Oz. Adar was released from captivity in November 2023.

The second terrorist in the car, Asim Hatab, was reportedly killed several months following Adar’s abduction, though the military has not confirmed this.

The military did not say where in Gaza City Wednesday’s strike took place.

Hamas authorities reported that a strike on a former school in the neighborhood of Tuffah in Gaza City killed at least 15, and another strike near a market in the city killed a further 33. The figures have not been verified and do not differentiate between civilians and combatants.

The IDF said Hamas “systematically violates international law, while cynically using civilian infrastructure for terror activity.”

Video showing the abduction of hostage Yaffa Adar on October 7, 2023, by Hamas terrorist Mohammed Rasmi Marzouk Baraka. (Israel Defense Forces)

The IDF also said Thursday it struck over 150 targets in the Gaza Strip in the previous 72 hours, including terror cells, buildings used by terror groups, and other infrastructure.

The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza reported nearly 200 dead over the course of the three days.

A drone strike Wednesday in central Gaza’s Deir al-Balah killed a Hamas commander, identified by the IDF as Nasser Juma. The military said he was a veteran member of Hamas’s rocket production unit.

Palestinian deported from Israel killed in airstrike in Gaza

Additionally, a Palestinian man deported from Israel to Gaza in February was killed in an Israeli airstrike on Rafah, the Arab48 news site reported Thursday.

Basel al-Qur’an, 28, was born in Deir al-Balah but spent his entire adult life in Israel, until he was sent back to the Strip when he completed a prison sentence for traffic violations.

Al-Qur’an’s mother Marwa told the outlet Wednesday that she was notified of her son’s death by one of the people he had been staying with in the Strip. His corpse was taken to Gaza European Hospital in Khan Younis for identification. It was unclear when al-Qur’an was killed.

Al-Qur’an was born to an Arab Israeli mother and an Egyptian father in Gaza. As an adolescent, upon his parents’ divorce, he moved with his mother to Israel, where he spent his entire adult life.

Though his mother, wife and children are Israeli citizens, al-Qur’an was never able to obtain permanent residency or citizenship in Israel due to a 2003 law largely barring Palestinians married to Israeli citizens from naturalization.

75% of Hamas civil defense emergency vehicles can’t operate

Meanwhile, amid the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Gaza, first responders in the Strip said Thursday that their operations were at a near standstill, more than two months into a full Israeli blockade that has left food and fuel in severe shortage.

Israel denies that a humanitarian crisis is unfolding in the Gaza Strip, where it plans to expand military operations to dismantle Hamas and force it to free hostages held there since the terror group’s October 2023 massacre.

“Seventy-five percent of our vehicles have stopped operating due to a lack of diesel fuel,” the Hamas-run civil defense agency’s spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP.

He added that its teams, who play a critical role as first responders in the Gaza Strip, were also facing a “severe shortage of electricity generators and oxygen devices.”

For weeks, UN agencies and other humanitarian organizations have warned of dwindling supplies of everything from fuel and medicine to food and clean water in the coastal territory that is home to 2.4 million Palestinians.

“It is unacceptable that humanitarian aid is not allowed into the Gaza Strip,” Pierre Krahenbuhl, director-general of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), told reporters in Geneva Thursday.

The situation in Gaza is on a “razor’s edge” and “the next few days are absolutely decisive,” he added.

Israel plans to resume providing aid to the Strip by using private American security contractors to secure aid distribution hubs within the Strip. According to officials briefed on the plan, five to six thousand vetted representatives will be allowed to travel on foot to the aid hubs once every two weeks in order to pick up a roughly 40-pound box of food for their families.

International organizations said the plan is unrealistic and will not allow for the provision of enough food to feed hungry Gazans.

More than 52,500 Palestinians have been killed since the war in Gaza was sparked by the Hamas onslaught of October 7, 2023, according to the Hamas-controlled health ministry.

The figures cannot be independently verified, and do not distinguish between combatants and civilians. Israel says it has killed some 20,000 combatants in battle as of January, and another 1,600 terrorists inside Israel during the Hamas onslaught.

The Hamas-led attack saw thousands of terrorists storm southern Israel to kill some 1,200 people and take 251 hostages, of whom 58 remain in Gaza, including at least 35 who are thought to be dead, in addition to the remains of a soldier who was killed in the Strip in 2014.