JERUSALEM (AP) — Seven Israeli soldiers were killed in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis when an explosive device affixed to their armored vehicle detonated, an Israeli military official said Wednesday.
Tuesday's explosion was a particularly deadly incident for Israel's military inside Gaza. Over 860 Israeli soldiers have been killed since the war began with the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack — including more than 400 during the fighting inside Gaza.
Also in the area of Khan Younis area, one soldier was seriously wounded Tuesday by weapons fire, the military said.
Al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas’s military wing, said on its Telegram channel it had ambushed Israeli soldiers taking cover inside a residential building Tuesday in the southern Gaza Strip.
Some of the soldiers were killed and other injured after they were targeted by a Yassin 105 missile and another missile south Khan Younis, Hamas said. Al-Qassam fighters then targeted the building with machine guns.
It was not immediately clear whether the two incidents were the same.
The deadly attack came as the Palestinian death toll inside Gaza passed 56,000.
Gaza’s Health Ministry said Tuesday that Israel’s 21-month military operation in Gaza has killed 56,077 people.
Hamas in its 2023 attack on southern Israel killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took 251 others hostage. Many hostages have been released by ceasefire or other agreements.
The death toll is by far the highest in any round of Israeli-Palestinian fighting. The ministry doesn’t distinguish between civilians and combatants but says more than half of the dead were women and children.
The ministry said the dead include 5,759 who have been killed since Israel resumed fighting on March 18, shattering a two-month ceasefire.
Israel says it only targets militants and blames civilian deaths on Hamas, which operates in heavily populated areas. Israel says over 20,000 Hamas militants have been killed, though it has provided no evidence to support that claim. Hamas has not commented on its casualties.
On Wednesday, a local Palestinian official said Israeli forces shot and killed a 66-year-old Palestinian woman in east Jerusalem. Israeli police said they were investigating the death of a woman from east Jerusalem who was pronounced dead at a checkpoint after arriving with “serious penetrating injuries" on Tuesday night.
Marouf Al-Refai, the Palestinian official, said Israeli forces stormed Shuafat refugee camp overnight, killing Zahia Obeidi with a shot to the head around 10 p.m. and seizing her body thereafter.
Israeli forces arrested her husband and sons later that night, said Refai. It was not clear by morning whether they had been released.
Israel captured east Jerusalem, including the Old City and its holy sites sacred to Jews, Christians and Muslims, in the 1967 Mideast war in a move not internationally recognized. Palestinians want an independent state with east Jerusalem as its capital.
Julia Frankel, The Associated Press
