With the death of an officer in Gaza, Israeli losses approach the one-thousand mark

With the first casualty in the ground operation on Gaza City, the death toll of the Israeli army is nearing one thousand since the outbreak of the war in the Palestinian enclave.

According to Yedioth Ahronoth, an RPG shell struck a tank south of Gaza City yesterday, killing officer Shahar Bouzaglo, 27.

Bouzaglo thus became the first fatality in the ground operation “Chariots of Gideon 2”, launched by the Israeli army at the beginning of last week with the objective of seizing control of Gaza City, the largest urban center in the besieged strip.

His death occurred amid escalating fighting, with more than 200 Hamas targets bombed and additional forces joining the assault, the report added.

The newspaper noted that the total number of Israeli soldiers killed since the start of the war on October 7, 2023, has now risen to 911.

On the same day, another officer was seriously wounded in close-range gunfire during clashes with Hamas fighters in the city.

Four days earlier, four Israeli soldiers were killed in Rafah when their armored vehicle struck a roadside bomb in the Jninah neighborhood.

Heavy bombardment of the city
In recent weeks, the Israeli army has carried out intensive bombardments on Gaza City before launching its ground offensive, with the stated aim of eliminating Hamas fighters in the enclave’s largest city.

At the same time, the army has stepped up warnings to residents of Gaza City, in the north of the strip, urging them to evacuate and move to a so-called “humanitarian zone” established in the south.

This escalation comes as an independent international commission of inquiry, mandated by the United Nations, accused Israel last week of committing “genocide” in Gaza since the war began on October 7. It is the first time such a body has reached such a conclusion.

The assault on Gaza has sparked widespread international condemnation, amid the catastrophic humanitarian situation in the besieged enclave, where the UN officially declared a famine last August.