Three Israeli soldiers were killed during fighting in the northern Gaza Strip on Monday, the military announced, as operations to combat the Hamas terror group’s regrouping efforts in the area continued.
The slain troops were named as: Cpt. Ilay Gavriel Atedgi, 22, from Kiryat Motzkin; Staff Sgt. Netanel Pessach, 21, from Elazar; and Sgt. First Class (res.) Hillel Diener, 21, from Talmon.
They all served in the Kfir Brigade’s Shimshon Battalion.
According to an initial Israel Defense Forces probe, the soldiers were killed by an explosive device in the Beit Hanoun area.
Israel’s toll in the ground offensive against Hamas in Gaza and in military operations along the border with the Strip stands at 391. The toll includes a police officer killed in a hostage rescue mission and a Defense Ministry civilian contractor.
The Kfir Brigade had just wrapped up an operation against Hamas in nearby Beit Lahiya earlier this week.
Troops advanced to the Beit Hanoun area “following intelligence information about the presence of terrorists and terror infrastructure in the area,” the IDF said on Sunday.
The military and Shin Bet also announced Monday that a senior member of Hamas’s general security forces had been killed in a Sunday airstrike in Gaza City.
According to the military, the target of the strike, Tharwat Muhammad Ahmad al-Bayk, served as the head of the security directorate in Hamas’s General Security Service.
Al-Bayk was targeted while at a Hamas command center embedded within the Musa Ibn Nusayr school, in Gaza City’s Daraj neighborhood, the IDF said.
The school was serving as a shelter for displaced Gazans, and Palestinian media reported at least eight dead in the strike.
The IDF and Shin Bet said that the security directorate in the General Security Service is a Hamas body that is tasked with building an intelligence picture to help the terror group make decisions.
The unit is also responsible for the protection of Hamas’s top officials, and has the job of providing shelters for the senior commanders and leaders to enable them to continue their military activity, the joint statement said.
“Al-Bayk was considered one of the main links in the mechanism, and a significant factor in [Hamas’s] decision-making,” the statement continued.
The IDF said it took steps to mitigate civilian harm in the strike, including by using a precision munition and aerial surveillance.
Meanwhile, organized looting is increasingly threatening aid delivery in war-torn Gaza, with armed groups taking advantage of the chaos and lack of governance to steal basic items, The New York Times reported Monday.
The paper said the phenomenon, which was once limited to desperate individuals, has now blossomed into systematic practices by armed groups in the enclave.
The growing threat has led the UN and other aid groups to halt operations, contributing to rising hunger and leaving tens of thousands of people without critical supplies, the report said.
The report said the Israeli military has tried to find alternate routes for aid that will bypass looters, but success has been only partial.
It added that the IDF appears to increasingly be targeting armed looters with airstrikes to deter the practice.
Israel has been at war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip since October 7, 2023, when the terror group invaded southern Israel, killing some 1,200 people and taking 250 hostages, amid acts of brutality and sexual assault.
Israel’s toll in the ground offensive against Hamas in Gaza and in military operations along the border with the Strip stands at 391. The toll includes a police officer killed in a hostage rescue mission and a Defense Ministry civilian contractor.
It is believed that 96 of the 251 hostages abducted by Hamas on October 7 remain in Gaza, including the bodies of at least 34 confirmed dead by the IDF. Hamas is also holding two Israeli civilians who entered the Strip in 2014 and 2015, as well as the bodies of two IDF soldiers who were killed in 2014.