The Israeli army announced on Sunday morning the death of four new soldiers killed in Gaza, bringing the number of Israeli soldiers killed since the start of the ground offensive in the Gaza Strip to 260 and 604 since the start of the war on the 7 october.
Captain Ido Baruch, 21, from Telmond, team commander, Sergeant Amitai Even Shoshan, 20, from Azriel, Sergeant Reef Harush, 20, from Kibbutz Ramat David, and Sergeant Ilai Zair, 20 , from Keidar, all four members of the commando school of the Egoz unit, were killed in combat in Khan Younes, in the south of the Gaza Strip.
The incident happened on Saturday afternoon, when soldiers from the commando school, accompanied by tanks from the 7th Brigade, were carrying out a patrol in the north of Khan Yunis with the aim of expanding the security zone by controlling the sector . Several terrorists then emerged from a tunnel which was among the ruins of a building and fired an anti-tank missile towards the soldiers. Three of them died instantly, the fourth later succumbed to his injuries in hospital.
The terrorists managed to escape through the tunnel through which they fired. The fighters of the commando brigade as well as the tanks which were trying to catch the terrorists spotted the explosive charges placed in advance by the terrorists and therefore stopped before being trapped.