The Israel Defense Forces announced early Tuesday that an IDF officer had been killed in fighting in Gaza City the previous day.
The slain soldier was named as Maj. Shahar Netanel Bozaglo, 27, a company commander in the 7th Armored Brigade’s 77th Battalion, from Migdal Haemek.
According to an initial IDF probe, during the ongoing offensive in Gaza City on Monday, a Hamas operative fired an RPG at one of the 77th Battalion’s tanks, injuring the officer.
Bozaglo was taken to a hospital, where his condition worsened until he succumbed to his injuries.
He is the first soldier to be killed in the IDF’s new offensive against Hamas in Gaza City, launched last week.
Israel has called on Gaza City’s roughly 1 million Palestinian residents to flee ahead of the offensive there. According to fresh IDF estimates Tuesday, some 640,000 Palestinians have so far evacuated to the Strip’s south.
The rate of Palestinians leaving the area has increased in recent days, as the IDF advances deeper into Gaza City.
The Gaza City offensive has been criticized by Israeli hostage families and, according to widespread media reports, by IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir himself, who is said to have told ministers it would needlessly endanger troops and the remaining 48 captives.
Aid agencies have warned that the offensive would deepen the humanitarian crisis in Gaza City, where the UN declared a famine last month in a report rejected by Israel.
On Monday morning, an officer was seriously wounded when gunmen opened fire on troops in the city. Troops killed Hamas gunmen in the firefight, the military said. Medical sources in the Hamas-run Strip reported at least 29 people were killed by Israeli fire, 25 of them in Gaza City.
Air defenses also shot down a rocket launched from Gaza City at the Israeli border community of Nahal Oz on Monday afternoon. The attack did not cause damage or injuries and was preceded by sirens activated in open areas, the Israel Defense Forces said.
It was the second rocket launch in as many days from Gaza City, which the IDF seeks to take over in the ground offensive launched last week.
Meanwhile, the IDF said it had struck and destroyed the Gaza City building from which Hamas fired two rockets at Israel’s southern port city of Ashdod on Sunday.
The IDF strike was carried out by the 215th Artillery Regiment, which is operating in Gaza City under the 162nd Division, the military said. Other forces of the division demolished Hamas infrastructure and killed 15 gunmen who were identified near the troops, according to the military.
Also in Gaza City, the 98th Division directed an Israeli Air Force drone strike on a Hamas weapons manufacturing site, and another drone strike that killed a cell of operatives who had been identified near the troops, the IDF said.
In the Strip’s south, a drone strike was also carried out on a building where soldiers from the IDF’s Gaza Division had spotted several Hamas operatives, the military said.