An Israeli soldier was killed and three others were wounded on Sunday inside Gaza as the Israel Defense Forces carried out limited operations within the tiny enclave ahead of the military's expected wider incursion.
The IDF has carried out a series of limited operations within Gaza, mainly to search for the bodies of missing Israelis and to clear the area ahead of the offensive. The soldier who was killed was later identified as Tamir Barak, 19, and he served in the Combat Engineering Corps. The IDF said he was killed when Hamas, which claimed responsibility, fired an anti-tank guided missile at an Israeli tank.
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Israeli leaders have called for the dismantling of Hamas, the U.S.-designated terrorist organization and de facto government of Gaza, following the unprecedented terrorist attacks in southern Israel earlier this month that left roughly 1,400 people dead. Most of the people killed in the attacks were Israeli civilians, while the terrorists who carried it out engaged in the execution of civilians, the killing of babies, torture, and burning people alive, among other things.
The IDF has not yet fully entered Gaza despite indications that it would've already begun at this point. In addition to the complexities of fighting in an urban environment against an enemy with a maze of underground tunnels that provide even more challenges, the Israeli forces are also looking to save the more than 200 people who were kidnapped in the attacks. IDF spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said on Monday that the military had notified the families of 222 people who were kidnapped.
Hamas released two Americans who were among the hostages last Friday, though no one else has been freed. But the release of Judith Tai Raanan and Natalie Shoshana Raanan, a mother and her daughter, has led the Biden administration to further delay the ground invasion in an effort to continue negotiations for the hostages and to allow for additional humanitarian aid to enter the area, according to the New York Times.
"So we’ve talked to the Israelis about what they’re planning," Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Sunday on CBS. "We give them our best advice. It’s important, as we’ve said, not only what they do but how they do it, particularly when it comes to making sure that civilians are as protected as they possibly can be in this crossfire of Hamas’s making."
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In the meantime, Israel has conducted a massive aerial campaign pummeling much of Gaza's infrastructure, which its military leaders say are legitimate military targets even as thousands of innocent civilians in Gaza have been killed. Hamas intentionally embeds itself with the civilian population to protect itself and to induce civilian casualties, which the group will then use to demonize Israel in the international spotlight.
The Palestinian Health Ministry said that after overnight strikes from Israel on Sunday into Monday morning, the death toll eclipsed 5,000. The ministry, which Hamas controls, has already spread misinformation during the conflict, so the accuracy of its total is questionable.