An Israeli soldier was killed and two others were seriously wounded during clashes in the northern Gaza Strip on Thursday, the military said.
A reservist serving as a tank driver in the 79th Battalion of the 14th Brigade — also known as the "Machatz" Brigade — was killed. Three other soldiers next to him were wounded, two of them seriously and one moderately. The wounded were evacuated to a hospital for treatment. Their families have been notified.
Among the wounded were an officer from the IDF’s elite Yahalom combat engineering unit and another reservist from the 79th Battalion.
The attackers have not yet been located. In response, the IDF launched airstrikes on targets in the area to isolate the combat zone and is preparing for additional strikes against Hamas positions in Beit Hanoun. The area had previously been a focal point of a major IDF raid on Jabaliya in the months leading up to the most recent ceasefire.
Saturday’s deadly incident at the nearby Outpost 40 involved a complex ambush in the border buffer zone, which the IDF is currently expanding. In that attack, Nassarasa, a 35-year-old tracker from the southern town of Rahat, was killed. Three others — a female officer, a medic, and another tracker — were seriously wounded.
According to a preliminary IDF investigation, the attackers emerged from a recently discovered tunnel and first fired a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) at the vehicle carrying the female soldiers from a combat intelligence unit. They then detonated an improvised explosive device (IED) targeting the rescue force that responded, killing Nassarasa. The vehicle was traveling on a logistical route between the outpost and the border — a path considered relatively secure and often used by lightly armored or open vehicles such as Humvees. The attack occurred only a few hundred meters from the border fence.
At the time, the command post of the new northern brigade commander of the Gaza Division, Col. Omri Mishaikh, was stationed nearby, near the Erez outpost. He and a team of brigade trackers rushed to the scene. Twenty-seven minutes after the initial attack, while scanning the area and firing at nearby targets to isolate the combat zone, another explosive device was triggered against their tracker unit. The blast killed Nassarasa and wounded another tracker.
