The military on Saturday named two more soldiers killed in Friday’s building explosion in the southern Gaza Strip, during which four in total were killed and five were injured.
The slain soldiers were Sgt. First Class Tom Rotstein, 23, from Ramat Gan, and Staff Sgt. Uri Yhonatan Cohen, 20, from Neve Yarak. Both served in the elite Yahalom combat engineering unit.
On Friday, the army announced the names of Sgt. Maj. (res.) Chen Gross and Staff Sgt. Yoav Raver, both were killed in the incident.
According to the IDF, the soldiers entered the building in Khan Younis to clear it of possible terror infrastructure, including tunnels.
The building was booby-trapped, and the explosion caused the structure to collapse on the soldiers, killing four and wounding five others, including one seriously.
The incident took place shortly after 6 a.m. in the Khan Younis suburb of Bani Suheila.
Hamas took responsibility for the attack.
Released hostage Liri Albag, who knew Cohen and Raver, mourned the two soldiers in a social media post Saturday.
“They didn’t have time to really live — not to love, to travel, to make mistakes, to recover. They only began to understand who they were, and then everything ended,” she wrote.
Ramat Gan Mayor Carmel Shama-Hacohen mourned Rotstein on Facebook, saying he was “the salt of the earth, who paid with his life so we can continue to live here in security and with hope to return the hostages.”
In a statement, the Drom HaSharon Regional Council mourned the “heartbreaking” loss of Rotstein.
After the deaths of the four soldiers on Friday, IDF Spokesman Brig. Gen. Effie Defrin said that sometimes there’s “no choice” but to enter structures in the Strip to investigate them for possible tunnels.
“To do this without being harmed by an explosive, we use a variety of methods. We will investigate this incident,” Defrin said in response to a question at a press conference.
Defrin said that IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir held an assessment on the deadly incident at Southern Command earlier in the day.
“We will draw lessons from this incident,” he added.
Israeli leaders expressed their condolences on Friday.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called it a “sad and difficult day.” He said that the fallen gave their lives in a campaign “to defeat Hamas and to bring back our hostages.”
“Our four fighters gave their lives for all of our security,” he said. “The entire people of Israel embrace the dear families in their heavy grief.”
President Isaac Herzog said that “the price of war is extremely heavy,” adding, “This is a time of great sorrow, but also of great commitment: to stand behind the generation of heroic fighters, to embrace the families of the fallen, and to ensure that their names and heroism will never be forgotten.”
A spokesman for Hamas’s military wing later said the terror group’s fighters “continue to hurl the ‘stones of David’ at the ‘Gideon’s Chariots,’” the latter being a reference to the name of the ongoing IDF operation in Gaza.
“The enemy’s people have no choice but to force their leadership to halt the war of extermination or prepare to receive more of their sons in coffins,” said a Hamas spokesperson.
Israel launched its war in Gaza following the October 7, 2023, Hamas assault on southern Israel that killed some 1,200 people and saw another 251 taken hostage. Terror groups in Gaza continue to hold 55 hostages, including the bodies of at least 33 confirmed dead by the IDF, and 20 who are believed to be alive. There are grave concerns for the well-being of two others, Israeli officials have said.
Israel’s toll in the ground offensive against Hamas in Gaza and in military operations along the border with the Strip stands at 429. The toll includes two police officers and three Defense Ministry civilian contractors.