Three Israel Defense Forces soldiers were killed battling Palestinian terrorists in the northern Gaza Strip on Monday, the military announced.
The slain troops were named as Staff Sgt. Ido Zano, 20, a combat medic with the Givati Brigade’s Shaked Battalion from Yehud-Monosson; Staff Sgt. Barak Daniel Halpern, 19, a squad commander in the battalion, from Kiryat Ono; and Sgt. Omri Cohen, 19, also a fighter in the Shaked Battalion, from Ashdod.
Twelve additional soldiers were wounded in the same incident—two of them seriously—a reservist from the battalion and a member of the Artillery Corps’ “Sky Rider” unit, which uses UAVs to collect and provide intelligence. They were evacuated by helicopter to the hospital.
Earlier on Monday, the IDF announced the deaths of four soldiers killed in Southern Lebanon despite the ceasefire currently in effect.
The slain men were identified as Maj. (res.) Evgeny Zinershain, 43, from Zichron Ya’akov; Capt. (res.) Sagi Ya’akov Rubinshtein, 31, from Kibbutz Lavi; Master Sgt. (res.) Binyamin Destaw Negose, 28, from Beit Shemesh; and Sgt. Maj. (res.) Erez Ben Efraim, 25, from Ramat Gan.
All four served in Battalion 9263 of the 226th “Nesher” Paratroopers Brigade, a reserve unit, the IDF said.
They were reportedly killed when munitions in a Hezbollah tunnel accidentally exploded.
The death toll among Israeli troops since the start of the Gaza ground incursion on Oct. 27 stands at 384, and at 816 on all fronts since the Hamas-led massacre on Oct. 7, 2023, according to official IDF data.
Additionally, Chief Inspector Arnon Zamora, a member of the Israel Border Police’s Yamam National Counter-Terrorism Unit, was fatally wounded during a hostage-rescue mission in Gaza in June, and civilian defense contractor Liron Yitzhak was mortally wounded there in May.
