Over 630 days of war later and much of Hamas' top command has been wiped out, and large swathes of the Gaza Strip obliterated. It's been no secret that the Netanyahu government is pursuing the complete annihilation of Hamas, ensuring that it can never again return to rule, but the reality is that the Israeli army (IDF) is still taking on mass casualties.
This shows that the Hamas insurgency, using the Strip's hundreds of miles of tunnels, is still fierce and ongoing. "Five Israeli soldiers were killed in combat in the Gaza Strip, the Israeli army admitted on Tuesday, in one of the deadliest days for Israeli forces in the devastated Palestinian territory this year," regional media reports.
The five soldiers "fell during combat in the northern Gaza Strip," the IDF announced. In total 14 others were wounded. Included were two that were severely wounded and "evacuated to a hospital to receive medical treatment."
They came under attack near Beit Hanoun in the north of Gaza,when improvised explosive devices were detonated, after which Israeli soldiers who sought to rescue the wounded came under fire again. Thus it's clear that either Hamas or Islamic Jihad militants set a trap and ambush for the soldiers.
The IDF and Israeli media have described that the infantry troops were operating on foot when the blast happened. One detail which highlights the ongoing extreme difficulty of uprooting the Palestinian insurgency is that the area where the attack occurred was subject of Israeli aerial raids just prior:
The military said the area where the attack took place was targeted from the air ahead of the troops’ operations.
The Netzah Yehuda soldiers were operating under the Gaza Division’s Northern Brigade as part of a fresh offensive with the 646th Reserve Paratroopers Brigade in Beit Hanoun, which began on Saturday, aimed at clearing the area of terror operatives who remain holed up there.
Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid wrote on X in the wake of the large-scale casualties, "For the sake of the fighters, for the sake of their families, for the sake of the hostages, for the sake of the State of Israel: this war must be ended."
Israeli society has remained fiercely divided over Netanyahu policy, with hostage victims' family members outraged that efforts to negotiate a deal to release the remaining captives have completely stalled.
Meanwhile, there is some activity on this front, with Qatar’s foreign ministry on Tuesday saying that renewed indirect negotiations will "need time". The White House has been supportive of peace efforts, but has sided with Israeli actions in Gaza time and again in its public rhetoric.
"I don’t think that I can give any timeline at the moment, but I can say right now that we will need time for this," spokesman Majed Al-Ansari said as Doha-hosted discussion entered a third day.
"What is happening right now is that both delegations are in Doha. We are speaking with them separately on a framework for the talks. So talks have not begun, as of yet, but we are talking to both sides over that framework," he tells a Doha news conference.