Ten Israel Defense Forces soldiers, including two high-ranking commanders and multiple officers, lost their lives in intense clashes in Gaza, the army announced on Wednesday, elevating the death toll in the ground offensive to 115.
Nine soldiers perished in a fierce battle in the heart of Shejaiya, marking one of the most deadly encounters since the commencement of the troops’ incursion into the Strip.
Among those identified as casualties in the Shejaiya clash were Col. Itzhak Ben Basat, 44, the head of the Golani Brigade chief’s forward command team; Lt. Col. Tomer Grinberg, 35, commander of the Golani Brigade’s 13th Battalion; Maj. Roei Meldasi, 23, a company commander in the 13th Battalion; Maj. Moshe Avram Bar On, 23, a company commander in the Golani Brigade’s 51st Battalion; Cpt. Liel Hayo, 22, a platoon commander in the 51st Battalion; Sgt. Achia Daskal, 19, a soldier in the 51st Battalion; Sgt. Eran Aloni, 19, of the 51st Battalion; Maj. Ben Shelly, 26, a squad commander in the Israeli Air Force’s Unit 669; and Sgt. First Class Rom Hecht, 20, of Unit 669.
Col. Itzhak Ben Basat is noted as the highest-ranking IDF officer to have fallen during the ground offensive against Hamas. The Times of Israel reported this major setback to Israel’s Defence Forces (IDF) in a single day on Wednesday.
Separately, Staff Sgt. Oriya Yaakov, 19, of the Combat Engineering Corps’ 614th Battalion, from Ashkelon, lost his life in an incident in northern Gaza. The army reported that three other soldiers sustained serious injuries.
According to preliminary findings, infantry soldiers from the Golani Brigade, working in conjunction with armor and engineering forces, were engaged in search operations in the kasbah of Shejaiya, a long-standing heavily fortified Hamas stronghold in northern Gaza.
In a tragic turn of events, an initial group of four soldiers, discovering the entrance of a tunnel in a cluster of three apparently abandoned buildings, faced an ambush by Hamas terrorists who launched grenades, detonated an explosive device, and opened fire. As a rescue operation ensued, led by senior Golani officers including Col. Ben Basat and Lt. Col. Grinberg, the situation became increasingly dire, with fears that the soldiers might have been captured.
