Fourteen soldiers died in the Gaza Strip in the last 48 hoursbetween the deadliest days in the Israeli ranks since the ground offensive began in the enclave, where fighting has intensified in the last week. Total, 153 Israeli soldiers have died in combat in the enclave since the start of the ground offensive on October 27, exceeding the 119 who died in the 2006 Lebanon waraccording to official Army figures.
“This is a difficult morning, after a very difficult day of fighting in Gaza. On behalf of the Government and all the people of Israel, I send condolences to the families of our heroic warriors who fell in this war for our homeland,” said the Israeli Prime Minister, Binyamin Netanyahu.
“The war is taking a very high toll on us, but we have no choice but to continue fighting,” Netanyahu said at the beginning of the weekly meeting with his government cabinet, in which he said that the offensive will still continue.Several months“, until “destruction of Hamas” and until “Gaza is no more a threat“.
The bombings and battles have caused more than 20,200 dead -more than 70% civilians including more than 8,000 children- and 56,000 injuredthe highest number of victims that any other conflict has left in Palestinian territory, according to the count of the Gazan Ministry of Health, controlled by Hamas. According to the Israeli Army, around 8,000 Hamas fighters They have been shot down.
With the rank of sergeant
Among the soldiers who lost their lives yesterday, Saturday, four were members of the 7th Armored Brigade, all with the rank of sergeant, who died in the battles in the south of the strip, in the area of Jan Yunis, a Hamas stronghold where the fighting is now concentrated. Two other sergeants of the Yiffach brigadean infantry unit made up of reservists, died in the center of the enclave, the same area in which two other soldiers, one of them a paratrooper, died in combat.
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A captain of the Nahal brigade, one of the elite units; and in the last hours another sergeant from an engineering unit. On Friday others lost their lives four soldierstwo of them from the Givati infantry brigade.
Since the war began, 486 Israeli soldiers have died, most of them, 333, during the brutal Hamas attack on October 7 and in the fighting of the following two days on Israeli soil, in addition to 68 police officers. The Hamas attack left more than 1,200 dead and 240 kidnapped.