The Israel Defense Forces announced on Tuesday morning that three Israeli soldiers had been killed in action in the Gaza Strip.
They were identified as Staff Sgt. Lior Steinberg, 20, from Petah Tikva; Staff Sgt. Ofek Barhana, 20, from Yavne; and Staff Sgt. Omer Van Gelder, 22, from Ma’ale Adumim. All three served in the Givati Brigade.
The soldiers’ vehicle was hit by an improvised explosive device (IED) in Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip, according to Hebrew media reports.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu extended condolences to the families of the fallen soldiers, describing them as “heroic” and vowing that their courage would never be forgotten.
Speaking on behalf of all Israelis, Netanyahu said, “Our hearts ache with the families at their most terrible moment,” and pledged that the memory of Steinberg, Barhana, and Van Gelder would be “cherished in the heart of the nation.”
On Thursday, a civilian contractor working for the Israeli Defense Ministry was killed in an IED explosion during an operation to destroy terrorist infrastructure in the Gaza Strip.
David Libi, 19, from the Malachei Hashalom outpost in the Binyamin region of southern Samaria, was deployed to Gaza with the IDF’s Combat Engineering Corps as an excavator operator.
The death toll among IDF troops since the start of the ground incursion in Gaza on Oct. 27, 2023, now stands at 416, and at 861 on all fronts since the Hamas-led terrorist assault on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
Additionally, civilian contractors Liron Yitzhak and Kobi Avitan were mortally wounded in Gaza in May 2024 and January 2025, respectively, and Ch. Insp. Arnon Zamora, of the Border Police’s Yamam National Counter-Terrorism Unit, was slain during a hostage-rescue a year ago.
