An Israel Defense Forces soldier was killed by a missile that malfunctioned during an airstrike in the southern Gaza Strip on Monday, the military announced.
The slain soldier was named as Lt. Shahar Ben Nun, 21, of the Paratrooper Brigade’s reconnaissance unit, from Petah Tikva.
Three troops were moderately wounded and three others lightly hurt in the failed strike.
According to a preliminary probe, Israeli Air Force fighter jets fired two missiles at separate targets in the Khan Younis area early Monday morning.
One of the missiles malfunctioned and struck a multi-story building where the paratroopers were stationed, about 300 meters away from the intended target.
The IDF said that the technical error was the first of its kind since the war erupted with Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre of 1,200 Israelis.
It comes after two Israeli soldiers were killed by a roadside bomb in central Gaza on Saturday.
The casualties were identified as Maj. (res.) Yotam Itzhak Peled, 34, from Rosh Haayin and Sgt. Maj. (res.) Mordechai Yosef Ben Shoam, 34, from Geva Binyamin. Both served with the Jerusalem Brigade’s 8119th Battalion.
The death toll among Israeli troops since the start of the Gaza ground incursion on Oct. 27 now stands at 330, and at 693 on all fronts since the Hamas-led Oct. 7 massacre, according to official military data.
Additionally, Ch. Insp. Arnon Zamora, a member of the Border Police’s Yamam National Counter-Terrorism Unit, was fatally wounded during a hostage-rescue mission in Gaza last month, and civilian defense contractor Liron Yitzhak was mortally wounded in May.
