Israeli military suffers deadliest day since Gaza war began

Israel has suffered its deadliest day since the Gaza war began after two buildings collapsed on soldiers, killing 21 of them.

The mother of Israeli soldier Ilay Levy, centre, during his funeral at the military cemetery in Tel Aviv. Picture: AFP

Israel has suffered its deadliest day since the Gaza war began after two buildings collapsed on soldiers engaged in an operation that raised questions about whether Israel’s government was proceeding with plans to create a buffer zone inside the strip.

Israeli officials have said they would take steps to ensure the security of Israeli communities near the frontier and prevent a repeat of the October 7 attacks, in which Hamas fighters poured out of Gaza and killed 1200 people, with some indicating that a depopulated border area would be needed.

Construction of such a buffer zone could exacerbate tensions between Israel and the US and its other Western allies who have warned against shrinking Gaza. Israeli officials haven’t publicly offered details of what any zone might look like or how it would function. The US has called on Israel not to occupy Gaza, permanently displace residents or diminish the Palestinian territory’s land area.

“We have been very clear and consistent, both in private and publicly, that we do not want to see the territory of Gaza reduced in any way,” White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said. “We won’t support that.”

Israel notified the US of its intention to build a 1km buffer zone along the Gaza-Israel border within weeks of the start of the war. It is unclear whether the US discouraged Israel from carrying out its plan at that time.

Twenty-one of the 24 Israeli soldiers killed on Tuesday died when two structures they were rigging for demolition caved in after militants fired rocket-propelled grenades at one of the buildings and a nearby tank, igniting explosives, military officials said.

The Israeli soldiers were operating inside Gaza, about 500m west of Kibbutz Kissufim, the Israeli military said.

In discussing the deaths of the soldiers, Israel’s military chief Lieutenant General Herzi Halevi used the term “buffer zone”. He said they had been killed while operating “in the buffer zone between Israeli communities and Gaza” as part of efforts to “create security conditions” for Israelis to return to their homes near the border with Gaza.

Tuesday’s incident raised the death toll of Israeli soldiers in Gaza to at least 221 since the war began. It also comes at a time when Israel is paring down its presence in Gaza by sending home reservists, many of whom are returning to their families for the first time in three months.

An Israeli official said a “temporary security buffer zone can be part of the demilitarisation process of Gaza”. Intense fighting continued Wednesday, centred on the encircled south Gaza city of Khan Younis, believed to be the last major Hamas stronghold. Hamas’s leader in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, is believed by Israel to be directing the battle from an underground bunker there.

Israeli military spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari on Tuesday said Israeli troops had killed more than 100 militants over the past day amid its initial thrust into southwestern Khan Younis, the most populated area of the city Israel has entered so far. Israel’s military said it also found and destroyed a 1.5km-long tunnel that included a large rocket manufacturing site located under a residential neighbourhood in the heart of Khan Younis.

More than 25,000 people, the majority women and children, have been killed in Gaza since the start of hostilities, according to Palestinian authorities. Those figures don’t distinguish between combatants and civilians.

Tens of thousands of Israelis from communities along the border with Gaza have been displaced since October 7. Creating the conditions for the safe return of these civilians to their homes is one of Israel’s more urgent aims.

US officials have said they don’t expect Israel to immediately leave the strip, but that creating a securitised area there could amount to annexing Gazan territory and violate international law.

“They’re not just going to pick up and leave a complete security vacuum in Gaza, so there’s going to have to be a transition period of some sort, ” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said.

Jacob Nagel, a former Israeli national security adviser, said the country would likely seek to create a strip of land along the border with Gaza where nothing would obscure any infiltration attempts into Israel.

“It should be clean like the Sahara Desert,” said Mr Nagel, now a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defence of Democracies, a Washington-based think tank.

In northern Gaza, Israel says its troops have largely routed Hamas’s forces and are now focused on dismantling the group’s military infrastructure, including destroying tunnels and rocket-launching sites, and clearing the border with Israel of structures that could obscure infiltration attempts into Israel.

The war in Gaza began with the call up of hundreds of thousands of reservists, the largest such mobilisation in the history of Israel. Many are stationed near Israel’s border with Lebanon, where Israel has been trading cross-border fire with the Lebanese militia Hezbollah since the start of the war.

The 21 reservists killed on Tuesday hailed from 20 different cities and towns across Israel and settlements in the West Bank, a fact Israeli officials and commentators seized upon to emphasise the country’s unity after the mass-casualty incident.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to continue the war “until complete victory”. That promise is still far away, with Israeli and American officials estimating that Israeli forces have killed between 20 per cent and 30 per cent of Hamas’s forces, and haven’t yet killed any of the group’s senior leadership in the strip.

Mr Netanyahu is under increasing pressure inside Israel to strike a deal under which Hamas would release the hostages it still holds.

The group is pushing for a permanent ceasefire and the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza as part of a deal. Mr Netanyahu has rebuffed both demands, saying doing so would amount to a defeat for Israel.

Senior Israeli political and military officials say they still believe that continued military pressure on Hamas would force the group to soften its demands to release hostages.

There has been fighting reported around at least two hospitals inside Khan Younis in recent days.

The Palestinian Red Crescent on Tuesday said its headquarters in Khan Younis had been struck by Israeli shelling, injuring displaced Gazans who had taken refuge there.

The organisation also reported gunfire by Israeli troops in the area in front of the Al-Amal Hospital, with at least one person being fatally shot.

“All I see is chaos and fear. There’s a big state of panic among the people because the shelling is everywhere,” said Sabreen Yatim, 32, a mother of six in Khan Younis.

Ms Yatim said her family was trying to flee but “we don’t know how to move or where to go because of the shelling and snipers”. Israel’s military acknowledged there was fighting near the Al-Amal Hospital and said it was looking into the report of shelling at the Red Crescent headquarters.

Israel has produced what it says is evidence that Hamas often uses hospitals and other civilian infrastructure for militant activity and launching attacks against its soldiers.

Medical officials at the Al-Amal Hospital reported receiving patients who had been injured from Israeli shelling in the al-Mawasi area, located on the southwestern outskirts of Khan Younis.

Israel has designated al-Mawasi as a “safer zone” for Gazans seeking refuge from the fighting and many have taken refuge there in tent encampments.

Israel’s military said it couldn’t comment on the reported shelling in al-Mawasi without reference to a specific location or incident.

The Wall Street Journal